
• • • . ^^^ *. » 



\ -*tj. A^ 'ii 









• • f 















»o *• • • '^ > 



, • e -. •t^^ 



MISTAKES 



OF 



INGERSOLL 



AS SHOWN BY 

PROF. SWING, J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D., 

W. H. RYDER, D. D., RABBI WISE, 

BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., 

AND OTHERS. 



INCLUDING INGERSOLL'S LECTURE 

ON THE 

''MISTAKES OF MOSES/' 



EUfxED BY / 

J. B. M<=CLURE. 

VoN OF CO^jJ^ 

CV(;. SJ2lL 

y CHICAGO: 

RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 

1879. 



^ 



^^;^% 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by 

J. B. McClijke & R. S. Rhodes, 

In the OflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



Stereotyped and Printed 



BY 



The Chicago Legal News Compaj^y. 

DONOHUE & HeNKEBERKY, 

Binders. 



A religious faith at present so generally pervades the 
civilized world that it seems almost amazing that any one 
shonld dare speak as Mr. Ingersoll does in his several lec- 
tures about the Bible. It is this singularity, no doubt, 
rather than intrinsic worth, which gives any significance 
that may attach to his words. That the Bible is in the 
least endangered is out of the question. It is too late now 
for that. The words herein compiled from good and able 
men, who have made the great Book, in its early language, 
import and history, a careful study for long years, will show 
how futile are Mr. Ingersoll's efforts in parading what he 
calls the " Mistakes of Moses," etc. Indeed, it would seem 
that, possibly Mr. I. is guilty of a mistaken identity, for he 
is severely accused of false assertions and misrepresentations 
concerning the real Moses. This reminds us of a " mis- 
take" which was made on a certain occasion by the celebra- 
ted Archbishop of Dublin, the gifted author of the w^ork so 
widely known, entitled " The Study of "Words." He was 
not in robust health at the time, and for many years had 
been apprehensive of paralysis. At a dinner in Dublin, 
given by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, his grace sat on 
the right of his hostess, the Dutchess of Abercorn. In the 

midst of the dinner the company was startled by seeing the 

(3) 



4 PREFACE, 

Archbishop rise from his seat, and still more startled to hear 
him exclaim in a dismal and sepulchral tone, " It has come! 
it has come ! " 

" What has come, your Grace? " eagerlj cried half a dozen 
voices from different parts of the table. 

" What I have been expecting for twenty years," solemnly 
answered the archbishop — " a stroke of paralysis. I have 
been pinching myself for the last twenty minutes, and find 
myself entirely without sensation." 

"Pardon me, my dear archbishop," said the duchess, 
looking up at him with a somewhat quizzical smile — " par- 
don me for contradicting you, but it is / that you have heen 
pinching !^^ 

Messrs. Gibson, Swing, Ryder and Herford, of Chicago, 
and Rabbi Wise, of Cincinnati, whose replies are herein 
given, are too well known as scholars and divines, to require 
any introduction to a reading public. Their words are 
wise and timely, and are put on record in this form to show 
the weakness of modern infidelity and the stability of Divine 
Truth. 

J. B. McClure. 

Chicago, April 22nd, 18T9. 



PAGE 

Pkof. Swing's Eeply 7 

The Lawyer vs. The Philosoplier — Ingersoll's Pro- 
fessional Proclivities in Making a Part Equal to 
the Whole 8 

Seven Mistakes of Moses Left Oat! — Injustice to 
Hebrew History . . ... . ,10 

Swing Puts Himself in IngersolPs Place and At- 
tacks the Seventeenth Century — How it Works 13 

IngersolPs ^Narrowness Shuts Out God, Heaven and 
Immortality — Infidel Dogmatism . . . 15 

In the World's Great Freedom of Choice, IngersoU 
is Counted Out . . . . . . . 18 



Dr. Ryder's Reply 

IngersolPs Unfairness — Attributes to Moses State- 
ments not in the Bible ..... 

His Temporary Insanity occasioned by Heavy Rains 
— Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge — Dam- 
aging Blunders — IngersoU up the Wrong Moun- 
tain . . 

Top-heavy — Too Broad a Structure reared on a Too 
iN^arrow Base . 

IngersolPs Inconsistency . , . . . 

He Has Ko Poetry in His Soul ; ergo^ etc. 
Additional Misrepresentations .... 
Dr. Ryder Propounds a Question . . . 

(5) 



21 



22 



24 

27 
29 

31 
32 
34 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

IngersoU Admits His Sad E'eed of Inspiration . 35 
Ingersoll's ''Religion of Humanity " All Right Ex- 
cept tlie Religion .37 

Dr. Ryder Tells a Little Story for the sake of Illus- 
tration . . . . . . . . 39 

Dr. Heefokd's Reply ...... 41 

The IngersoU Paradox . . . . .^42 

Ingersoll's Exaggerations and False Assertions . 43 
Dr. Herford's Story of Moses, with an Apt Illustra- 
tion — The Germinal Power of the Pentateuch . 46 
The Mosaic Religion of Humanity . . .49 

The Jewish Rabbi's Reply 53 

De. Gibson's Reply 61 

IngersoU Betrays His Ignorance .... 62 
Harmony of Science and Genesis . . . .63 
The Harmony of Genesis and Science 'Not the 

Result of Guess-work, but of Inspiration . 6T 

God 69 

Nature ........ 70 

Man . . 72 

Woman 73 

Mistakes Respecting Labor and Death Corrected . 75 
The Deluge and its Difficulties — ISTot Universal — 
Ararat originally a District (alas! IngersoU calls 
it a High Mountain) — Other Deluges . . 76 
Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor . .80 
Candor vs. Injustice — Dr. Gibson's Pointed Sum- 
mary . . . . . . . . 81 

"What Distinguished Men Say of the Bible . 85-96 

Ingersoll's Lecture, 

Entitled "The Mistakes of Moses," . .97 






Cc lyz c^ KC^^^^^, 7jc 



Mistakes of Ingersoll 



AS SHOWN BY 



PROF. SWING, 

W. H. RYDER, D. D., 

BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., 



J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D., 
RABBI WISE, 
And others. 



PEOF. SWING'S EEPLT. 



This discourse is not spoken regarding the man, Robert 
G. Ingersoll, but regarding tbe addresses which he is deliv- 
ering and is otherwise publishing. The man Ingersoll is 
said to be, in his private life, kind, neighborly, humane, 
and in many ways an example which might be imitated 
with great profit by thousands who represent themselves as 
holding the Pagan or the Christian religion. But, were 
this author and lecturer a mean, wicked man, I should still 
be bound to consider his thoughts apart from the thinker 
just as we deal with Bacon's ideas apart from his moral 
qualities, and the politics of Alexander Hamilton apart 
from the infirmities of his moral sentiments. The intel- 

(7) 



8 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. 

lect of such an individual as the one before us is a thinking 
machine. It makes a survey of the religious landscape. 
Objects strike it that escape you and me. His eyes are not 
those of a preacher, not those of a bishop, nor those of an 
evangelist like Mr. Moody ; not those of a moralist like 
Dymond or "William Penn, nor those of Theodore Parker 
or Emerson, but they are a vision purely his own, and our 
task is limited to the inquiry what this peculiar sense dis- 
covers in our wide and varied world. 

The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher — IngersoU's Professional 
Proclivities in Making a Part equal to the "Whole ! 

We perceive at once that these addresses do not offer us 
any system of philosophy for woman, or child, or State, and 
therefore they cannot aspire to be any valuable Mentor to 
tell each young Telemachus how to live. They are the 
speeches of a lawyer retained by one client of a large case. 
Men trained in a profession come by degrees into the pro- 
fession's channel, and flow only in the one direction, and al- 
ways between the same banks. The master of a learned 
profession at last becomes its slave. He who follows faith- 
fully any calling wears at last a soul of that calling's shape. 
You remember the death scene of the poor old schoolmas- 
ter. He had assembled the boys and girls in the winter 
mornings and had dismissed them winter evenings after 
sundown, and had done tliis for fifty long years. One win- 
ter Monday he did not appear. Death had struck his old 
and feeble pulse; but, dying, his mind followed its beauti- 
ful but narrow river-bed, and his last words were: "It is 
growing dark — the school is dismissed — let the girls pass 
out first." Yery rarely does the man in the pulpit, or at 
the bar, or in statesmanship, escape this molding hand of 
his "pursuit. We are all clay in the hands of that potter 



PROF. SWING'S BEPLT. 9 

which is called a pursuit. A pursuit is seldom an ocean of 
water; it is more commonly a canal. But if there be a 
class of men more modified than others in language and 
forms of speech, the lawyers compose such a class, for it is- 
never their business to present both sides. It is their espe- 
cial duty so to arrange a part of the facts as that they shall 
seem to be the whole facts, and next to their power of pre- 
senting a cause must come their power to conceal all aspects 
unfavorable to their purpose. A philosopher must see and 
set forth at once both sides of all questions, but a lawyer 
must learn to see the one side of a case, for there is another 
man expressly employed to see the reverse of the shield. 
But few of us are philosophers. "When we wish to exhibit 
something, we instantly cut off all light except that which 
will fall upon our goods. If we are to display only a yard 
of silk, we will veil the sun and move about to find the 
right position, and then light a little more gas, that the 
fields, and hills, and heavens may all withdraw, and permit 
us to see the fold of a bride's dress. Thus all the profes- 
sions, honored by being called learned, do more or less cut 
off the light from all things except the fabric that is being- 
unfolded by their skillful fingers. 

Men of intense emotional power like Mr. Ingersoll, and 
men who, like him, have hearts as full of colors as a paint- 
er's shop, are wont, beyond common, to pour their passion 
upon one object rather than diffuse it all over the world. 
These can awaken, and entertain, and shake, and unsettlcy 
but then, after all is over, we all must seek for final guides 
men who are calmer and who spread gentler tints with their 
brush. I am, therefore, of the opinion that none of us- 
should follow anyone man, but rather all men; should seek 
that general impression, that wide-reaching common-sense, 
which knows little of ecstacy and little of despair. These 



10 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

" Addresses " under notice are wonderful concentrations of 
wit, and fun, and tears, and logic, but concentrations upon 
minor points. Thej are severe upon a little group of men, 
npon literalists and old Popes, and old monks, but they do 
not weigh and measure fully the religion of such a being as 
Jesus Christ, nor touch the ideas and actions of the human 
race away from these fading forms of human nature. 



^even Mistakes of Moses Left out! — Injustice to Hebrew- 
History. 

These addresses do injustice to the Hebrew history. A 
lawyer has a right to be one-sided and narrow when he is 
presenting the cause of his client, but when he is addressing 
^ public upon a religious, or political, or social question, 
narrowness in his discourse must be considered an infirmity, 
or else an act of injustice. These speeches betray either 
unconscious narrowness or willful injustice. But Mr. Inger- 
soU is the embodiment of sincerity, according to those who 
•enjoy his acquaintance, and therefore we must conclude 
(that the cast of his mind is such that it is led hither and 
thither by that narrowness which belongs no more to a high 
Oalvinist than to a high infidel. If the lecture upon 
^' Moses " had been more thoughtful, it would have con- 
fessed that there were several forms of the man " Moses," — 
the historic " Moses," the Hebrew " Moses," and the Calvin- 
istic " Moses; " and then, after this concession, he might have 
assailed the " Calvinistic Moses." .... 
But if the addresses had been broad, and spoken for that 
larger audience called humanity, they would have asked us 
to mark the mistakes of the Moses of Hebrew times and of 
common history. But they did not dream of this. Stand- 
ing in the presence of one of the grandest figures of Egyp- 



FROF. SWING'S REPLY, 11 

tian and Hebrew antiquity, Mr. Ingersoll failed to see this 
personage, and permitted nothing to come upon his field of 
vision except those sixteenth century theologians who dis- 
torted alike the mission of Moses and of Christ, and even 
of the Almio^htv. To set forth the mistakes of the historic 
" Moses " would not be any easy task. One doing this 
would be compelled to ask us to mark the blunders of a 
leader who planqed freedom for slaves; who bore complain- 
ings from an ignorant people until he won the fame of unu- 
sual meekness, one who did in reality what infidels only 
have dreamed of doing — living and dying for the people; 
the mistakes of one whose ten laws are still the fundamental 
ideas of a State, of one who organized a nation which lived 
and flourished for 1,500 years; the mistakes of one who 
divested the idea of God of bestiality and began to clothe it 
with the notions of wisdom and justice, and even tenderness; 
the follies of one who established industry and education, 
and a higher form of religion, and gave the nation holding 
these virtues such an impulse that in the hour of dissolving 
it produced a Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles; and 
thus did more in its death than Atheism could achieve in all 
the eons of geology. Seven mistakes of Moses left out! 

There is, it is true, a time and a place for irony, but after 
it has done its work amid the accidental of a time or a place, 
there remains yet much to be studied by the sober intellect 
and loved by the heart which really cares for the useful and 
the true. It is essentially a small matter that some poetic 
mind, some Froissart or some Herodotus, came along per- 
haps after the reigns of David and Solomon, and gathered up 
all the truths of old Hebrew tradition, and all the legends, 
too, and wove them together, for out of such entanglements 
the essential ideas generally rise up just as noble pine trees 
at last rise up above the brambles and thickets at their base, 



12 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

and evermore stand in the full presence of rain, and air, and 
sun. Above the brambles and thorn of legend, at which 
the narrow eye may laugh, there rises up from the Mosaic 
soil a growth of moral truth that catches at last full sun- 
shine and full breeze; a growth that will long make a good 
shadow for the graves of Christian and iniidel beneath. 
The errors of legend are so unimportant that even a Divine 
Book may carry them. 

It will thus appear that the method of the addresses is 
very defective. It is not a wide survey of a two-thousand- 
year period in human civilization, a period when the He- 
brews were making imperishable the good of the Egyptians 
who were dying from vices and despotism, but is only the 
ramble of a satirist having a sharp eye for defects and a most 
ready tongue. All the by-gone periods may be passed over 
in two manners. We may go forth for our laughter or for 
our pensiveness and wisdom. Juvenal saw old Borne full 
of dissolute men and women. Yirgil saw it full of litera- 
ture. Tacitus found it not destitute of patriots and heroes ; 
and when Juvenal found the husbands all debauchees, and 
the wives all hypocrites, there the most calm and elegant 
historians found the most excellent Agricola, and found a 
wife of spotless fame in the daughter Domitia. Thus in 
the very generations in which the lampoons of Juvenal 
found only vice, behold we see beauty and virtue in full 
bloom around the homes of Tacitus, and Agricola, and 
Pliny. Thus all the fields of human thought lie open to 
the invasion of those who wish to mock, and of those who 
wish to admire. And beyond doubt when Mr. Ingersoll 
shall have nttered his last thought over the Mistakes of 
Moses, some other form of intellect could glean in the same 
field, and leave covered with the truths of Moses, a nobler 
and larger tablet. 



PROF. SWING'S REPLY. 13 

Swing Puts Himself in Ingersoll's Place and Attacks the 
Seventeenth Century. — How it "Works! 

Permit me now, in imitation of the style of these addresses, 
to ask you to look at the seventeenth century: Why, it all 
drips in blood! Horror upon horrors ! The King of Persia 
put to death some of the Poyal family and put out the eyes 
of all the rest — even the eyes of infants. Russia begins her 
cruel oppression of Poland. Prussia, the hope of Europe, 
is desolated by war, which never lifted its black cloud for 
thirty years. In this wretched century came the massacre 
of Prague and the forcible banishment of 30,000 Protestant 
families. Allowing five persons to a family, it will thus ap- 
pear that 150,000 were driven from their homes and country. 
Further south, in France, a few years before, 700,000 Pro- 
testants had been murdered in twenty-four hours. After- 
ward came the licentious court of Louis XIY.; while over 
in England noble men and women were being beheaded or 
otherwise slain in dreadful numbers. The beautiful Queen 
Mary is beheaded just as the century begins, and Essex is 
beheaded in its full opening. And in its close France re- 
enters the scene, revokes the edict of Nantes, and sends into 
exile 800,000 of her best citizens. 

Thus dragged along the seventeenth century, as it would 
seem, bleeding, and weeping, and gasping in perpetual 
dying. What a picture! Amazing indeed, but narrow and 
false! I have been thinking only of the "mistakes" of a 
time. Just look at that century again with a wider survey 
and a happier heart, and lo! we see*in it a matchless line 
of immortal wortliies. There flourished Gustavus, laying 
the foundations of our liberty; there lived Grotius, writing 
down the holiest principles of duty ; there we see Galileo 
inventing the telescope, and beholding the starry sky ; there 



14 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 

sits Kepler finding the highest laws of astronomy; near 
these are the French preachers, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Mas- 
silon, whose fame has not been equaled; there, too, Pascal 
and Corneille. But this is not all. It is not one-third the 
splendor of that one epoch, for, cross the Channel, and 
behold yon meet Shakspeare, and Lord Bacon, and Milton^ 
and Locke, and while these divine minds are composing 
their books, Cromwell is overthrowing despots, and a 
Republic springs up as b}^ enchantment, ^hus the seven- 
teenth century, which awhile ago seemed only a period that 
a kind heart might wish stricken from history, now come& 
back to us as the sublime dawn of poetry, and science, and 
eloquence, and liberty. 

The truth is we must move through the present and the 
past with both eyes wide open, and with a mind willing to- 
know all and to draw a conclusion from the whole combined 
cloud of witnesses. The author of the addresses does not 
do this. He does not make a wide survey nor draw conclu- 
sions from widely scattered facts; and hence, after he ha^ 
spoken about the horrors of the Mosaic age, or of the church 
there remains that age or that church emptying rich treas- 
ures into the general civilization, purifying the barbarous 
ages, awaking the intellect, stimulating the arts, inspiring 
good works, elevating the life of the living, by setting before 
man a God and a future existence. Our Christianity has a 
Hebrew origin. The sermon on the Mount was begun by 
Moses. 

The eloquence of Mr. Ingersoll is much like the art of 
Hogarth or John Leeck, — an acute, and witty, and interest- 
ing art, but very limited in its range. Hogarth was with- 
out a rival in his ability to picture the " mistakes" of mar- 
riage, and of a " Rake's Progress," the peculiarity of " Beer 
Lane" and " Gin Lane"; and his art was legitimate in its 



FROF. SWING'S REPLY. 15> 

field, but its field was narrow, and took no notice of the 
eternal beauty of things as painted by Rubens or Raphael.. 
After Hogarth had said all he could see and believe about 
marriage, there stood the holy relation in its historic great- 
ness, filling millions of homes with its peace and friend- 
ship, notwithstanding the mirth-provoking pencil. Thus- 
the ideas of "Moses," and " Church," and "Heaven," and: 
" God" lie before Mr. Ingersoll to be pictured by his skill- 
ful derision, but after the artist has drawn his little Puritanic 
Hebrew and his absurd Heaven, and has painted his little 
gods, and has limned his own Papal Heaven and Hell,, 
another scene opens and there untarnished are the deep 
things of right and wrong, the immortal hopes of man, and 
a Heavenly Father which cannot be placed upon a jester's- 
canvas. 

John Leech found the weak points in all English high 
and low life. The fashions, and sports, and entertainments,, 
and the current politics, underwent for a generation the tor- 
ture of his pictures, his sketches, his cartoons, but the- 
moment the laugh had ended, the homes of England, the 
happy social life of rich and poor, the learning and wisdom, 
of her statesmen were back in their place just as the sun is 
in his place after a noisy thunderstorm has passed by. 

Ingersoirs Narrowness Shuts out God, Heaven and Immor- 
tality — Infidel Dogmatism. 

This narrowness of survey which marks Mr. Ingersoll's 
estimate of the Hebrew period and of the human Church,, 
follows him in his thoughts about another life and the exist- 
ence of God. He denies that any regard whatever should 
be paid to a second life. Heaven deserves no consider- 
ation at our hands. He says in his lecture on the Gods: 
" Reason, observation and experience have taught us- 



J6 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy 
is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This 
is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and 
die." Such assertions as these no broadly-reaching mind 
•could make, for the broad mind, not knowing but that there 
may be a second life, having no positive information on that 
point, is bound to admit all that uncertainty, and that hope 
is a most lawful element in that strange mingling which 
makes up the soul. As Mr. Ingersoll does not know whence 
man came, so he knows not whither he goes, and therefore 
he must himself stand and permit others to stand in the 
presence of death as in the presence of a great mystery that, 
:at least, should silence all dogmatism of priest or infidel. 
The logic of the addresses may be fitted for the common 
jury, but they are too rude for man who is weeping his 
way along between birth and death. 

In some better hour the lawyer forgets his petit jury and 
addresses the human soul. On the title page of a recent 
volume he says in substance that: " The dream of immor- 
tal life has always existed in the heart of man, and will 
Temain there in all its matchless charms, born not of any 
book or creed, but out of human aifection;" and being not 
born of reason and sense, he can but reject its hope; he is 
personally above being molded in thought, or action, by 
such a fable of the heart. In calling such a dream a fable, 
he is guilty of that very dogmatism which he so hates in 
'Calvin and Edwards, for if Calvin was too certain that he 
knew God's will, Mr. Ingersoll is too certain that he knows 
God not to exist. It often happens that the dogmatism 
of the bigot must await its exact parallel in the dogmatism 
of the atheist. The ideas of a future life and a God are 
thus in these addresses rudely set aside as though this 
author had shown the real origin and destiny of the Uni- 
verse, and had found out the secret of the grave. 



PROF. SWING'S REPLY. 17 

He would pay no attention to tlie idea of God. He would 
not be guilty of any worship in this life. He says: " If 
by any possibility the existence of a power superior to and 
independent of nature shall be demonstrated, there will be 
time enough to kneel. Until then let us stand erect." 

In such language we find only a perfect overthrow of the 
method of the human soul; for the soul has never dared 
wait for any such certainty in any of the paths before it. It 
lias always been compelled to build up before itself the 
largest possible motives and hopes, and then live for them 
and abide the consequences. It is wonderful that a man 
who will pluck a violet and draw delight from its tender 
color and still more delicate perfume, will sternly command 
the human race not to hold in its hands any flower of im- 
mortality, lest by chance its leaves may at last wither. If 
this idea of a future life should at last fail, which seems im- 
possible, the human heart will be all the purer and happier 
from having held all through these years a lily so sweet and 
so white. 

Logic cannot make such short work of the religious sen- 
timents. Mr. Ingersoll says: *'If you can ever find a God, 
just let me know, and I shall kneel. Until then I shall 
stand erect." Wliat injustice to that delicate form of rea- 
son, which has moved the world for perhaps 10,000 years ! 
We do not propose to find God or a future life. What the 
world has found long since is the deep hope in a God, and 
the measureless hope that the dying loved ones of this world 
will meet in a land that is better. Nobody has come to the 
human race to let it know that a God has been found, but 
many have come to it saying: '^My dear children, let us 
trust that all this matchless universe came from a Creator, 
and that from him we also came." So many and so holy 
were these voices, and so responsive was the heart, that upon 
2 



18 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

this trust the living and the dying have knelt and have told 
their longings to the Invisible. The human race has not 
been haughty. It has been willing to kneel. Its heart has 
never been stone, nor its knees brass. It has stood erect in 
battle where liberty was to be won ; it has been as erect as an 
infidel when a bosom was to be bared for arrows or bullets, 
or when the neck was to be unclothed for the fatal ax, but 
in moments of hope and longing it has bent willingly in 
hope and prayer. The advice of the Addresses not to kneel 
until you have reached and handled the Creator, is advice 
that civilization has always spurned, for it has woven all its 
gorgeous fabrics out of delicate probabilities, — gossamer 
threads spun by the heart. Fame, and learning, and art, 
and happiness are all simple possibilities before each youth. 
He does not dare say, Make me sure of results, and I will 
gird mys-elf for the present. He casts himself upon the bet- 
ter of two possibilities, and is borne along toward an un- 
known end. Thus has the human race dealt with the inti- 
mations of religion. It has cast itself upon the better hope, 
and, being at perfect liberty to espouse Atheism, has always 
repudiated it as being a paralysis of the soul, and a perfect 
reversal of the common logic of society. 

In the World's Great Freedom of Choice, Ingersoll is Coun- 
ted out ! 

The world has always been perfectly free to use the form 
of reasoning which Mr. Ingersoll suggests. No Westmin- 
ster Assembly, no Calvin compelled the human family 
from Old Egypt to Greece to think the universe had a 
Creator. The world has always been free to suppose that 
such seasons as day and night and spring and summer, such 
creatures as the nightingale and man, such a star as the sun, 
all came from mud and water and fire, mingling of their 



TBOF. SWING'S BEPLY. 19 

own accord ; but the world has had no wide use for such 
conclusions. Of its own free choice, it has av^oided Atheism, 
and has never made up anywhere a civilization without dis- 
carding the idea of waiting for a demonstration, and with- 
out espousing the idea that all noble society reposes upon 
lofty hopes. Out of beautiful possibilities the soul's gar- 
ments are woven. 

It thus appears that the Addresses are defective as guides 
for any man's life or death. They constitute a bill of ex- 
ceptions against certain hard rulings in some local and igno- 
rant courts, but as pleadings in the great tribunal where the 
whole human family stands assembled, to get the wisest 
decisions about duty and happiness, and the possibility of 
there being a God and a second life, the possible value of a 
hope for the dying — they each and all fall far short. They 
see only the religion of some fanatic, and think it the religion 
of Jesus or of mankind. They see a God damning honest 
men, and conclude that is what is meant by Jehovah. They 
see a Heaven with some little sect in the midst of it, and 
speak as though they were what is meant by the immortality 
of man. They note the follies of the Puritans and Papists, 
and infer that if there were no religion in the world, there 
would be no bad judgment or bad passions. They fail, too, 
to mark the delicacy of man's practical logic, which is not 
iron-like, waiting for the absolute end of all doubt, but which 
is bending and hopeful, and stands ready forever to found 
immense motives, and society, and church, and homes upon 
the greater and better of two probabilities that lie within this 
world of cloud. They assert the adequacy of earthly happi- 
ness as an end of being, and fail to mark that earthly hap- 
piness has always depended upon high morals, and father, 
and mother, and child, and social life, and all mental de- 
velopment have found their full meaning, until a warm aiatd 



20 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. 

broad religion lias shed its cheering light. The human race 
cannot find its supreme good in having a few acres of ground, 
and in seeing the grass grow, and in hearing the birds sing. 
These make some days delightful indeed, but man, with his 
retinue of art, and statesmanship, and morals, and tempta- 
tions, and virtues, and joys, and sorrows, and partings, and 
death, demands the assumption of a God, and the expecta- 
tions of a resurrection from the dust. Under such a temple 
as society, the foundation must be deep. 

To those who read or hear these addresses of Mr. Inger- 
soll, let me say: Hear them, read them if you wish, for they 
will show you what a sad caricature of Christianity was that 
which came down to us from the Dark Ages; but, having 
thus been taught by an enemy, then dismiss the laughter, 
and look at religion in the widest forms of its doctrine and 
experience. "We are now warned daily not to follow parti- 
sans in politics, because they will eclipse a country by a 
little chair in office — they will make a village outweigh a 
continent. These addresses of a talented lawyer warn us 
equally against trusting the partisans in religion — the dim- 
eyed zeal which makes a Deity as small as their own hearts, 
a Bible as cold and as hard as adamant; but now, having 
been taught to shun partisans in politics and in Christi- 
anity, let us learn to resist one more form of partisan — the 
partisan of an atheism and a hopeless grave. Let us at 
times laugh with him, let us admire his acuteness, let us 
confess the honesty of his life, but for our guides or ideas 
in the world spiritual let us seek some mountain of thought 
where the survey is broader, and tenderer, and more just, 
from which height no good lies concealed ; but looking from 
which we can see the great landscape of the soul, some of 
it bathed in light, some of it lying in shadow, but all of it 
instructive and full of impressiveness. 



DB. BYDEB'S BEFLY. 21 



DE. ETDEE'S EEPLT. 



In tlie commencement of this review of Mr. Ingersoll's 
lecture upon " The Mistakes of Moses," I wish two things 
distinctly understood; First, that my controversy is not 
with the man, but with his address; and, second, that he 
has the same riffht to advocate his views as I have to advo- 
cate mine. On the question of religious liberty we are as 
one. 

Furthermore, I do not wonder that certain minds, having 
passed through peculiar experiences, become thoroughly 
disgusted with particular forms of theological thought. My 
only surprise is that more are not. Such material ideas of 
the Deity as are sometimes put forth in the name of Chris- 
tianity; such offensive literalizing as is sometimes applied 
to the future life, and such thoroughly untenable positions 
as are sometimes taken as to what the Scriptures actually 
are, has long been a fruitful cause of infidelity, and will 
continue to be so as long as they receive the indorsement of 
any branch of the Christian Church. 

But intensity of conviction may degenerate into preju- 
dice, and this prejudice practically unfits one to discuss tlie 
subject to which it relates. From what the distinguished 
lecturer says of himself, of his determination in every ad- 
dress he makes, no matter what the topic, to denounce cer- 
tain views, and from the specimen of his work now brought 



22 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. 

* 

under review, I conclude that Col. Ingersoll occupies just 
this position. 

While, then, the right to speak one's honest thought is 
thus frankly conceded, and the provocation to employ strong 
language in reference to certain theological opinions is also 
conceded, it will be admitted by all candid minds that cer- 
tain subjects from their very nature, and from interest which 
they involve, are to be treated with seriousness and fairness. 
If not so treated, the influence of the discussion is almost 
certain to be harmful. The lecture under notice, though 
nominally on the errors of a particular character in the Old 
Testament, is virtually an assault upon all revealed religion, 
and especially that contained in the Bible. 

IngersoU's Unfairness — Attributes to Moses Statements 
not in the Bible. 

!N'ow, my first position is this: Whoever publicly attacks 
the sacred books of the Christian world, and attempts to 
destroy faith in them, should treat the subject fairly. I re- 
gret to say that the lecture does not seem to me so to treat 
its great theme, but is, on the contrary, a conspicuous illus- 
tration of prejudice and unfairness. ITo small portion of 
the lecture is unworthy a reply. There is nothing to reply 
to. Of fair argument there is a lamentable lack, — no incon- 
siderable portion of the time seems to have been spent in 
knocking over a man of straw of his own manufacture. If 
his lecture be regarded simply as an entertainment, it is a 
success, for the Colonel knows how to amuse an audience as 
well as the best; but if it were intended to be a fair and 
able discussion of an important subject, it is not simply a 
failure, but a failure so obvious as to leave no room for any 
other opinion. In proof of my statement that the lecture 
does not treat the topic which it professes to discuss fairly, 
I offer these specimens as evidence: 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY, 23 

The first specimen is: Attributing to Moses language 
and statements not to be found in any of liis writings. 
Speaking of Moses, he says: *' The gentleman who wrote it 
(Genesis) begins by telling us that God made it (the world) 
out of nothing." And then he proceeds to ridicule the idea. 
But Moses says neither that nor anything like it. The 
lecturer thus misrepresents the very first sentence in the 
Pentateuch. What Moses says is, that " In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth." What he created 
them out of, or when " in the beginning " was, he does not 
say. The simple thought is that the heavens and the earth 
were not self-evolved, but were created by the Omnipotent 
Jehovah. 

"You recollect," he says, "that the gods came down and 
made love to the daughters of men," etc. Where does Moses 
say that? Plenty of that kind of talk is Grecian and Poman 
mythology, but what has that to do with "The Mistakes of 
Moses? " " They built a tower (Babel) to reach the heavens 
and climb into the abodes of the gods." Another of the 
Colonel's mistakes. The Tower of Babel was not built for 
any such purpose. From the frequent references of this 
kind to the gods in connection with the religion of Moses, 
it looks as if the lecturer was not aware that the Jews were 
not particularly in favor of idolatry. Again he says: 
"There is not one word in the Old Testament about woman 
except words of shame and humiliation. It did not take 
the pains to record the death of the mother of us all. I have 
no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the 
equal of man." 

It is true that Moses does not record the death " of the 
mother of us all; " but it is also true that the first account 
of the burial of any person in the book of Genesis is that 
of a woman, Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Moses simply 



24 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

says of Adam: "The father of us all," "And he died;" 
and in a similar summary manner are all the other men dis- 
posed of; hut when it comes to this woman Sarah, a special 
lot has to be purchased for her, and secured to the family, 
so that her remains might not be disturbed; and even now 
in remembrance of the cave of the field in which she was 
buried, a certain part of our modern cemeteries is called 
Machpelah. By the side of this fact how does the declara- 
tion look that " there is not one word in the Old Testament 
about women, except words of shame and humiliation?" 
Suppose I turn the tables upon the lecturer, and say, I have 
no respect for any book that does not treat man as the equal 
of woman. My words, if applied to the Bible, would be 
hardly less libelous than his. 

His Temporary Insanity Occasioned by Heavy Rains — 
Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge — Damaging 

Blunders — Ingersoll up the "Wrong Mountain. 
My second specification is that he not only makes Moses 
say what lie does not say, but he frequently misrepresents 
what he does say. I name these particulars: First, in speak- 
ing of the flood, he gives the impression that, according to 
the Scriptural account, all the water that covered the earth 
and inundated it came out of the clouds in the form of rain. 
He says: "And then it began to rain, and it kept on rain- 
ing until the water went twenty-nine feet over the highest 
mountains. How deep were these waters? About ^ve and 
a half miles. How long did it rain ? Forty days. How 
much did it have to rain a day? About 800 feet." ISTow 
what are the facts ? In the verse w^iich precedes the one 
which says, "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and 
forty nights," we have this record, — Gen., vii., ii. — " In the 
600th year of iToah's life, in the second month, the ITth day of 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY, 25 

tlie montlij the same day were all the fountains of the great 
deep broken np, and the windows of heaven were opened." 
"Why did not the lecturer mention this statement of the 
" breaking up of the fountains of the great deep," which is 
generally supposed to refer to the upheaval or subsidance of 
some large body or bodies of land, perhaps to portions of 
this western continent, and is considered to have been the 
principal cause of the deluge? "Why omit the supposed 
principal cause of the deluge, unless it was his purpose to 
make out a case without regard to the facts? 

Furthermore, what authority has he for saying that the 
ark rested on the top of a mountain seventeen thousand feet 
high, and that the water upon the earth was " five and a 
half miles deep? " Has he committed the ignorant blunder 
of confounding Agri-Dagh with the hilly district to which 
the name was formerly applied? The lofty peak that now 
bears the name of Ararat has no such designation in Bib- 
lical history, and it is the name given to it in compara- 
tively modern times. The Bible record is; "Fifteen cubits 
upwards did the waters prevail." The Hebrew cubit is 
about twenty- two inches. If we may trust the conclusions 
of science, deluges have been no unusual events in the his- 
tory of this globe. Most of the land, if not all of it, no 
matter how high at present, has been at some time sub- 
merged. Whatever one may think about the accuracy of 
the narrative in reference to the building of the ark and the 
uses to which it was put, there is certainly no physical 
improbability in the statement that that part of the earth 
which was then above water was thoroughly inundated. 

Again, the gentleman makes merry over what he calls the 
" rib story," and imagines two persons before the bar of 
God, one believing the " rib story " and the other denying 
it. The believer of it is accepted by the Judge as belonging 



26 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

in Heaven, and the denier of it as belonging in Hell. And 
this he puts before the public as Bible doctrine — as if any 
man of common sense, whether Jew or Gentile, ever defended 
so ridiculous a theory. As a further specimen of this unfair- 
ness, I present you this: " Do you believe the real Grod — 
if there is one — ever killed a man for making hair oil? 
And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a 
receipt for making hair oil to grease Aaron's beard ; and 
said if anybody made the same hair oil he would be killed." 
There could hardly be written a more complete misrepre- 
sentation and perfect caricature of the whole subject than 
this. The reference in Scripture is to an anointing oil, to be 
applied, not simply to the persons of the priests, but to the 
sacred vessels as well; and, thus anointed, they were set 
apart for what they regarded as holy uses. But if this cus- 
tom which Mr. Ingersoll seeks to hold up to ridicule, was 
simply Jewish, there would be some show or plausibility for 
talking about it as he does; but he has not even that to jus- 
tify his attack. For this custom of using anointing oils in 
connection with religions services, and sacred persons, and 
utensils, was common among the idolatrous nations, and 
even conspicuous among the rites of the Bomans. And 
even now one often meets with the spirit of the same cus- 
tom. I do not know whether the Colonel is a member of 
the Masonic fraternity, but he must have seen representa- 
tives of that ancient Order pour out anointing oil upon the 
corner-stone of some building which they were engaged in 
laying. Why not ridicule that, and why not also ridicule 
the beautiful custom of that Order of dropping upon the 
uncovered coffin of a deceased member the little sprigs of 
evergreen that the brethren bear in their hands as they 
march around his open grave? It is easy to see that with 
reference to every such custom, however sacred, one who 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 27 

takes tlie naked fact apart from its associations, may find 
abundant material for ridicule. But whether a fair-minded 
man will allow himself to treat any serious subject in that 
manner, is a question upon which there is no occasion that 
I should pronounce judgment. Mr. Ingersoll makes a sim- 
ilar blunder in what he says about the custom of sacrificing 
doves for the use of priests, since the practice did not exist 
among the Hebrews until hundreds of years after the event 
which he seeks to ridicule. 

Top-Heavy — Too Broad a Structure Reared on a Too Nar- 
row Base. 

My third specification is, that he treats a particular inter- 
pretation of the Bible as the undisputed word of God. He 
assumes that this or that is Bible doctrine because some- 
body may at some time have taught it, and then denounces 
the whole Bible as unworthy the respect of mankind. 
This feature of the address runs through the whole of it. 
But, in this respect, candor compels me to say his method 
is that of Thomas Paine in his "Age of Reason," and of a 
certain class, but not the better class, of so-called infidel 
writers. Mr. Paine reproved the w orld for believing what 
he showed to be unreasonable doctrines, and called upon 
the people to throw away their Bibles for teaching such 
sentiments; but it was Mr. Paine, and not the Bible that was 
in fault, for the doctrines which he shed so much ink to 
condemn arei not taught in the Bible. Mr. Ingersoll's 
method is precisely the same. If he wishes to hold up to 
the contempt of mankind certain doctrines that some sect 
may have believed, or even does believe, let him announce 
his subject, keep to his text, and go ahead; but to go from 
place to place, exhorting the people everywhere to throw 
away their Bibles, under the pretense that these representa- 



23 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

tions of his are the undisputed word of God, is simply an 
outrage upon the Christian public, and unworthy any man 
who claims to be fair-minded. 

Mr. Ingersoll's references to the clergy disappoint me. 
He speaks of them as if they were a set of fools, and does 
not add that they are all graduates of prisons, and a pack of 
scoundrels generally. To which gentlemanly references we 
need only say, that in this slanderous speech he is guilty 
of the same offense against fairness and good breeding that 
is committed by any nominal Christian who, either through 
Windless or perversity, can see nothing good in the services 
of the distinguished infidels of history, and who, to preju- 
dice the public against them, resort to the mean subterfuge 
of misrepresenting their positions, and telling falsehoods 
about them. If any man, in an address before this com- 
munity, should treat the writings of Yoltaire as shabbily as 
Mr. Ingersoll has treated the writings of Moses, — and as to 
that, the entire Bible, — the Colonel would have to go out- 
side the Psalms of David to find imprecations to express 
his contempt. His references to Andover have, of course, 
nothing to do with " The Mistakes of Moses," but they 
relate to an important subject, and are a pertinent illustra- 
tion of the eminent unfairness of the general address. This 
is what he says: "They have in Massachusetts, at a place 
called Andover, a kind of minister factory; and every Pro- 
fessor in that factory takes an oath in every ^yq years that, 
so help him God, he will not during the next five years 
intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he 
could easier keep. They believe the same creed they first 
taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now, when 
they send out a minister they brand him, as hardware from 
Birmingham and Shefiield. And every man who knows 
where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argu- 
ment of his creed, every book that he has read, and just 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 29 

what he amounts to intellectuallj, and knows that he will 
shrink and shrivel and become more and more stu^^id day 
after day until he meets with death." 

My personal sympathy with the And over Theological 
School is not, as you may suppose, very deep and ardent. 
I respect the generosity and self-sacrilice of the "^yq noble 
minds — one of whom was a woman — that founded the insti- 
tution in 1807, and the aid which it has given to liberal and 
exact scholarship. On the whole, I do not like the rule to which 
Mr. IngersoU refers. Probably many of those in charge of 
the institution do not. I understand it to be a custom con- 
tingent upon certain endowments made long ago, and which 
is observed as a matter of form. But the rule is not fairly 
open to the objection that Mr. IngersoU makes against it. 
First, it simply relates to the theological professors, and 
does not concern the students. Second, it compels no man 
to take it who does not wish to. The University says, in 
effect, we believe in certain doctrines; we desire the instruc- 
tion of this institution to be in accordance with these ideas. 
Can you conscientiously teach them ? If so, we wish you ; 
if not, we do not wish you. But if you come to us, you 
are not compelled to remain, but can go where you will, and 
when you will, and teach what you please; but so long as 
you remain in the service of this institution we expect you 
to carry out the purposes of its founders. What is there in 
this that is particularly narrow and dementing? But the 
Colonel repudiates his own positions. He says: " The com- 
mon school is the bread of life, but there should be nothing 
taught in the school except what somebody knows; any- 
thing else should not be maintained by a system of general 
taxation." 

Ingersoll's Inconsistency ! 

But, let us inquire, who is to decide " what somebody 
knows?" Practically, the answer is, the people, or their 



30 MISTAKES OF INGEESOLL. 

representatives, in scliool boards, committees, etc. They 
select the text-books, and they expect instructors whom they 
engage to follow them, for the text-books are assumed to 
embody what is true on the subjects to which they relate. 
What would the lecturer say of a teacher in one of our public 
schools who should to-day teach the rejected doctrine that 
the sun revolves about the earth? What, but this: turn 
him out and put some one in his place who teaches the 
truth — which, being interpreted, means, teaches according 
to the authorized text-books. Why, on the very occasion of 
the lecture itself, after the Colonel had denounced Andover 
for pledging loyalty to certain doctrines, and which act he 
characterizes as so harmful to freedom of thought, he him- 
self demands of the people whom he is addressing that they 
will never support a certain form of doctrine, nor gi\re money 
to aid in building any church in which they are taught. 
His language is: "I would have every one who hears me 
swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build 
another church in which is taught such infamous lies." 
Mark you, not simply a pledge for &ve years, but they are 
never to change their views. My friends, is there no such 
thing as consistency in belief ? Is one a bigot because he 
says. This is what I believe, and this, therefore, I defend? 
Are these men to be ridiculed and assailed, and only those 
who shirk such responsibility to be held up as patterns and 
guides? Brethren, I am not speaking of some sophomoric 
oration, but about the deliberate thought of a man who has 
made himself famous in this line of labor, and of whom our 
townsman who gracefully introduced him said, " a man who 
does his own thinking, and who thinks before he says." 
ITow, of every such man it is safe to say, he knows that 
organization is essential to the welfare of society, and is 
perfectly consistent with liberty of thought. The free- 
thinkers of this country are organized as well as others; 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 81 

and it is tlieir right to be if they have anything to teach or 
defend. A Christian combination, against which some peo- 
ple hurl their anathemas, is simply the grouping together 
of those who have a similar mind and purpose, the better to 
do this work which they have in common. Of course there 
has been in connection with some of these denominations a 
fearful amount of bigotry. When we come to that topic we 
are quite at home. Bigotry is no friend of ours; we owe 
him no service. The denomination which this church rep- 
resents has received from the dominant sects about us a 
pretty large share of persecution and abuse. But, for all 
that, we do not propose to follow the lecturer's example and 
call our brethren hard names, simply because they apply 
such epithets to us. 

He Has no Poetry in His Soul ; Ergo, etc. 

My fourth specification is, that he misrepresents the wri- 
tings of Moses, and, as to that, the entire Bible, by treating 
its metaphoric language as literal statements. 

Think of a man, in this age of light, speaking of the pic- 
tured representation of the Old Testament in this way: 
" They believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a 
window, and let out the desired quantity of moisture. I 
find out in the Psalms that he bowed the heavens and came 
down." I wonder if the gentleman can see anything but 
mere literalism in this passage? "As the mountains round 
about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from 
henceforth, even forever." Like other nations, the Hebrews 
have their patriotic, descriptive, didactic, and lyrical poems 
in the same varieties as other nations; but with them, unlike 
other nations, whatever may be the form of tlieir poetry, it 
always possesses the characteristic of religion. Even their 
patriotic songs are a part of their religion. The Jews have 
taught the world its devotional poetry. If there is to be 



32 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

found anywhere conceptions of tlie Deity and of the universe 
more remarkable for their sublimity and grandeur than are 
met with in the sacred books of the Jews, I know not where 
to look for them. Certainly when they are compared with 
the religious poems of other countries, most nearly contem- 
poraneous, as those of Homer and Hesiod, they are so vastly 
superior as to lead to the belief that, if the poets of idola- 
trous Greece drew their inspiration from human genius and 
learning, those of Judea had a higher illumination. 

Additional Misrepresentations. 

My fifth specification is, that the representation given in 
the lecture of the Hebrews as a people, is almost wholly in- 
correct, both as to the work undertaken by them and the 
efiect of that work upon mankind. 

We have no disposition to shut our eyes to the ignorance, 
cruelty and superstition of the Hebrew race in the early 
periods of their history. There was but little in them that 
gave the promise of a great nation when Moses led them 
out of Egypt. They were low in the scale of civilization. 
Many of the things done by them we cannot justify, and 
we are not required to do so. But what arrests our atten- 
tion is, that almost from the first they show a gradual im- 
provement in their condition, and finally reach that proud 
pre-eminence when Jerusalem became the Athens of its 
day. There are two points of view from which to judge of 
the early history of any people: one is, to compare it with 
that of contemporary nations, and the other is, to compare 
it with our own time. It is manifest that the former is the 
proper basis of judgment. Consider, then, as already inti- 
mated, who the people were that Moses thus led out of 
Egypt. Reflect that they were but children in intelligence, 
and that the higher forms of thought had but little influence 
over them; and that if they were held to the law of duty, 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 33 

and organized into a nation, it must be by sncli material 
forms and simple customs as they could comprehend. Re- 
flect, furthermore, that these people had been brought iip in 
the midst of idolatry, and that in leaving Egypt they did 
not get away from its influences, but that, wherever they 
went, they were assailed by it; that idolatry was almost the 
universal form of worship, and that it was a mighty task to 
educate these people in the doctrine of the one only living 
and true God, and hold them to it. Heflect, furthermore, 
that to secure this end much might then be done which, 
under the circumstances, would be at least excusable, that 
should not be done now. Fairness requires that we con- 
sider whether the custom originated with the Jews them- 
selves, and what was its spirit and purpose. 

Prominent mention is made in the lecture of polygamy 
in connection with the Jews, and one would infer from 
what he says that the custom of plurality of wives originated 
with them, and that it was a custom peculiar to them. 
This is his language: "Is there a woman here who believes 
in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who 
believes in that infamy? You say ^ no, we do not.' Then 
you are better than your God was 4,000 years ago. Four 
thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it, and upheld 
it." The facts appear to be these: Polygamy has existed 
from time immemorial. Even in the Homeric age of the 
Greeks it prevailed to some extent, and, though not known 
in republican Rome, it practically prevailed under the 
Empire, owing to the prevalence of divorce; but in what; 
we call the Eastern nations the custom has been almost 
universal, being sanctioned by all religions, including that 
of Mohammedanism. In this regard the Hebrews, to a cer- 
tain extent, followed the prevalent custom viz: the law of 
Moses did not forbid it, but did contain many provisions 
against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to 



34 MISTAKES OF INGEESOLL. 

restrict it within narrow limits; and, as the spirit of the 
Hebrew religion advanced the civilization of the nation, 
the practice more and more fell into disuse, until it finally 
died out; and in the glimpses of Jewish life which the New 
Testament gives us, there are no traces of it discernible. 
Since the Hebrew race the world over, for some 3,000 years, 
has as much as any other people discountenanced such 
practices, though still firmly believing in Moses as the 
prophet of God, it is clear that they do not consider polyg- 
amy any part of the Jewish system, but a custom permit- 
ted for a season because so universally practiced by the 
surrounding nations. 

Doctor Ryder Propounds a Question. 

But just here comes in a question of high importance. 
If there is nothing in Judaism to exalt woman — and every 
reference to her in their sacred books is one of " humiliation 
and shame " — how happens it tliat the Jews discarded the 
custom of polygamy some two thousand years ago, while 
the practice still prevails among the nations of the East, 
and notably in Mohammedanism, which, in so many respects, 
takes the external form of Judaism? The truth is, that great 
injustice has been done to the real religion of the Hebrews, 
by both Christians and unbelievers. We have judged it too 
exclusively by the Mosaic law, and the mere letter of it at 
that. Real Judaism is not the Old Testament, but that 
which has come out of it — the result of its growth, and the 
expansion of its inherent forces. Long before the advent 
of our Lord the Mosaic law had virtually given way to the 
Jewish religion, and it is that religion, the spirit of which 
in the beginning so largely came from the great law-giver 
himself that has had three thousand years of existence to 
certify its right to live, and which to-day assigns it a most 
honorable place among the religions of humanity. And in 



DB. RYDER'S REPLY. 85 

dismissing tliis branch of our subject, it seems pertinent to 
inquire, where did Moses obtain his religious ideas? The 
Egyptians had reached high advancement in the arts and 
sciences in the time of Moses, but their degradation in refer- 
ence to religion is unmistakable. It is said of Moses that 
he " was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and 
was mighty in words and deeds; " and he was no doubt 
greatly aided by what he had learned from them, but it 
seems too evident to admit of discussion that he did not get 
his religious ideas from that source. Whence came they? 
But, whatever may be our answer to this question, there 
can be, it seems to me, but one opinion as to the respect 
due to the illustrious religious leader who has made upon 
the race so profound an impression for good. 

The five specifications now before you cover the evidence 
we offer of the correctness of our general proposition, viz.: 
that the address upon '' The Mistakes of Moses," is a con- 
spicuous illustration of prejudice and unfairness. 

Ingersoll Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration. 

Col. Ingersoll uses this language: " JS^o thing needs inspir- 
ation but a I'alsehood or a mistake. A fact never went into 
partnership with a miracle." " A fact will fit every other 
fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether 
or not it is a fact." Suppose we test this rule. How about 
good and evil, truth and error, the mysterious and the evi- 
dent, divine sovereignty and human freedom, heat and cold, 
art and asceticism, economy and benevolence, government 
and freedom, each of which is an undisputed fact, but each 
two facts that we thus group together no more fit each other 
than the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which, acting in 
opposite directions, hold the universe together? My friends, 
there is a recognizable distinction between^ the knowable 
and unknowable. But the line that separates the two is 



38 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 

not sharply defined. The border land between^them seems 
sometimes near and at other times very far away. The 
i*ealm beyond the knowable is the realm of m^^stery, and 
out of it come some of the most potential forces that sway 
our lives. What we call the knowable is those things that 
can be demonstrated — can be proved to be true by a prac- 
tical method. But consider how small a portion of our real 
life is covered by any such form of real evidence. For 
neither our affections, nor our tastes, nor our judgments, 
nor our beliefs, nor our ambitions, nor the higher expres- 
sions of our moral natures, can be thus demonstrated. 
They do not in any way depend upon the classification of 
facts in nature, but are cognizable by our consciousness, 
and are so widely operative in our daily life, that it almost 
seems as if what we call the knowable never touches us at all. 
' Science has nothing to say about, or to do with, either 
morals, religion, benevolence, duty, or inspiration. The 
sources of life, the cause of thought, of afi*ection, passion, 
hope, and love, are all incomprehensible to science, and will 
remain so till the end of time. *' There is no science of tlie 
soul, any more than there is a prayer in mathematics.''' How 
utterly, then, does one misapprehend and misstate the real 
facts of human experience, who teaches that " nothing needs 
inspiration but a falsehood, or a mistake," and that one is to 
accept nothing as true which cannot be demonstrated. How^ 
much wiser and how much better are the words of St. Au- 
gustine, when he says: " God exists more truly than he can 
be thought of; He can be thought of more truly than he 
can be spoken of." For myself, I reverently believe that 
the Bible contains a revelation from God. 1 say contains 
a revelation from God, not that it is in itself such a revela- 
tion, for the Bible, as such, was not revealed. The inspira- 
tion that breathes through its pages is of some of the things 
written, but not of all; the inspiration is rather of the 



DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 37, 

thought, purpose, the leadings of God, than of the letter in 
which they are expressed. There is, to my mind, no appeal 
from the words of Christ once satisfied that he uttered the 
sa^dngs which are attributed to Him in the Gospels, and 
they are, to me at least, infallibly true, and literally " the 
words of eternal life." 

Ingersoll's " Religion of Humanity " All Right Except 

the Religion. 

The influence of such an address is to completely destroy 
the religious faith which the people now have, and give 
them nothino^ in return. It is true Mr. In^rersoll commends 
to his hearers " the religion of humanity." But what does 
he mean by it? The answer is, he means simply Atheism, 
which is virtually the rejection of all religion, since it is 
the denial of the being of God himself. Now with God 
dethroned, the name religion has no further use. "What, 
then, is the religion of humanity to those who deny the 
existence of God, and leave everything either to chance or in- 
exorable law? One mi^ht infer from the assumption of these 
Atheistic teachers that free-thinkers are the only people who 
have any religion of humanity, or who practice it. The 
geweral impression made by the Colonel's lecture is that 
Christians are a bad lot — mean, hypocritical, demented kind 
of folks; and that bright and progressive people, such as 
"have brains" (though it does not require a large supply 
of that article to qualify one to ridicule another person's 
religion) and " do their own thinking," reject all such 
absurdities as revealed religion, and are governed by some 
sort of a higher law. 

Now that this view of human nature, so complimentary 
and congenial, withal, is '^ quite taking" is very likely true. 
One likes to be patted on the back in this way, and be 
called "progressive," and not hide-bound like those old 



38 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

fogies, and stupid theological graduates, and owlisli minis- 
ters, and sucli sort of folks. But sonieliow it does not seem 
to stay upon the public stomach after it is taken. For this 
is just the kind of talk in which noisy infidels have indulged 
for the past 800 years. " Christianity is virtually extinct," 
they say, " and now we are to have a new order of things." 
But, for some reason, Christianity does not die, land the 
world moves forward in much the old way." 

The truth is, some things seem very well as declamation 
that utterly elude you when you attempt to embody them 
in vital forms. As theories they look well, but in practice 
they are worthless. They are as beautiful as foam and just 
as substantial. Where are the monuments of free religion? 
In the struggle for religious liberty in France I recognize 
the powerful influence of Yoltaire; and an advocacy of a 
true democracy in this country, very few, if any, did more 
by their pen than Thomas Paine; but, aside from these 
general benefits to society, where are the testimonies of the 
work they wrought? What did they do for the more per- 
fect organization of society, and for the elevation ^nd 
purity of the public morals? I repeat, where are the mon- 
uments of this free relis^ion? Has it noihino: to show in its 
own behalf but slanderous assertions? And has its most 
distinguished advocate in this country degenerated into a 
jesting scoffer? Who built the institutions of learning 
throughout the Christian world, and who supports them? 
Who organized the institutions of charity, and who sustains 
them? I repeat, this ^'religion of humanity," whatever 
that may be, does well enough to talk about, but, somehow, 
when there is solid work to be done nobody wants it, and 
somehow, nobody seems to do or pay much towards sup- 
porting it. The leading universities in Germany that did 
so much forty years ago in disseminating Rationalism are 
now comparatively empty, while those of the religious 



DR, RYDER'S REPLY. 39 

schools are patronized. To-dav every prominent nniversitj 
in Germany except that in Heidelberg is controlled in the 
interests of revealed religion, and Heidelberg has but very 
few theological students left. And, if one may judge of 
the effects of teaching by tlie deportment of those taught, 
it will be, I tliink, nearly the unanimous opinion of travelers 
that tliey are very badly instructed, for a prominent part of 
the business of the students of that institution seems to be 
to get up quarrels with each other and with the public, and 
fic^lit duels. The truth is, that the sober second thought of 
the thinking world has shut its " colossal shears" upon the 
theories of Bauer, Strauss, and Renan, and no wisdom of 
man will ever reunite the dissevered fracirments. 

o 

Dr. Ryder tells a Little Story for the Sake of Illustration. 

How strano^e it is that nearly all the world should be such 
simpletons, and that human nature persists in exploding all 
these fine theories that have no real religion in them. But 
then, you know, some people are wise in their own conceits. 
Let me relate an incident: ^' An eminent lawyer had in 
court a very clear case. After presenting an array of testi- 
mony, law, and precedents that he thought was unanswer- 
able, he submitted his case. To his utter astonishment, the 
Judge, who was bigotedly and dogmatically on the 023posite 
side in prejudice, decided every point of the case against 
him. After he had recovered from his amazement, he arose 
and proceeded to read Blackstone and leading jurists, the 
statute law, and judicial decisions, flatly contradicting the 
decision of the Court. The Judge pompously interrupted 
him with: ' That will do you no good; the mind of the 
court is made up; cannot change it.' The lawyer replied: 
' I have no expectation of changing the opinion of the 
court. I do not question the infallibility and the infallible 
accuracy of its decisiofl. I only want to show what consum- 



40 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

mate fools Blackstone, Kent, and all jurists, our legislators, 
and all the judges, except the judge of this court, must have 
been.' " 

Friends of humanity, lovers of the truth as it is in Jesus, 
can we afford to trifle with such a momentous issue as this? 
Is there nothing sacred, nothing but the mere husk of things 
in v^^hich it is safe for us to place our faith? Is there no per- 
manent joy this side the grave, and only the blackness of 
darkness beyond? Is the religion in which so many millions 
trust simply a delusion, and the God whom we adore merely 
a myth? If so, why are we in this world, and what is this 
world? "What is anything for but to lure us into disap- 
pointment? 

]^ay, we believe in God, the Father everlasting, and in 
Jesus Christ, His Son. In the love which They awaken, we 
desire to live; and in the trust which They inspire, we hope 
to die. 



DR. HEBFORDS REPLY. 41 



DE. HEEFOED^S EEPLT. 



All tlirongli my life I Lave felt a very deep syrnpatliy 
for those who have become alienated from Chris Lianity by 
the irrational and unworthy things often taught in its name. 
, It seems such a miserable, gratuitous loss, as if there was 
I not enough to make even the purest faith often dim and 
doubtful without it being made more so by the follies of 
those who should strengtlien men in it ! But so it is. And 
of course one cannot expect men in that strong reaction to 
be very discriminating in what they attack. But there are 
limits! A man is not absolved from the duty of thinking 
and speaking fairly by having come to reject the popular 
opinions of society. !N"ow it seems to me that this recent 
lecture of Col. IngersolPs overpasses all just limits. I 
frankly own its brilliant eloquence, its irresistible humor, 
and the passionate impulses of tender human sympathy 
which flash out in it. I can quite understand many being 
carried along by these. But afterward has to come the sober 
thinking and the honest questioning. What does it amount 
to? Are its positions true? Are its arguments fair? It 
seems to me that they are glaringly the opposite. The 
whole test that he applies to liis subject is a mistake; the 
way in which he applies it is not even moderately just; its 
representations are one-sided; its illustrations are carica- 
ture. And the worst of all is that there is no sign even of 
any desire or attempt to be fair! 



42 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 

The Ingersoll Paradox. 

The first of Col. Ingersoll's mistakes, is in tlie whole point 
of view in which he places the Bible in order to make it the 
easier target for his wit. He starts bj repudiating any idea 
of its having been written bj God's inspiration; and yet 
all through talks as if God were responsible for it — as if 
God had said this and threatened that — and becomes qnite 
heroic in his declaration that God may damn him, but he 
won't believe such things! When once inspiration is put 
aside, such declarations are mere clap-trap! When you look 
through all this, you find that in reality he simply regards 
the Bible as the work, the ideas of men. Yery well; then 
take it so, and judge it fairly in that light! If the book of 
Genesis is, as Col. Ingersoll believes, the writings and the 
ideas of ancient men, then do not attack it because the ideas 
are not tiiose of men to-day. But that is wliat he is con- 
stantly doing. He is very fond of saying, "The question is 
not, is it inspired, but is it true?" That sounds very plaus- 
ible, but you know, as applied to any ancient book, it is 
simply nonsense. It is a test which you don't apply to any- 
other ancient book in the world. Yon do not try Homer's 
" Iliad " by the test of whether it is true. When a clay 
tablet is dug up at Nineveh, or a papyrus is found in some 
mummy-wrappings, you don't ask, Is it true? and if not, 
throw it away. The question about all such things is not, 
"Are they true?" but "Are they genuine relics and repre- 
sentations of the thought of the ancient world?" By-and- 
by indeed will come the question, how far any records or 
statements in such ancient writings can be taken to throw 
light on actual history — how far their statements are alle- 
gorical or poetical, or mere ancient tradition? Well and 
good. And by all means let those questions be apj>lied to 
Genesis; apply them just as you would to any other ancient 



DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 43 

writings; but in the name of common fairness don't pick it 
to pieces bj a minute verbal criticism, and a strained liber- 
ality which would only be justifiable on the ground of its 
being verbally inspired. That is a mistake which may be 
merely a mental confusion, but a graver one lies beyond. 

Ingersoll's Exaggerations and False Assertions. 

Mr. Ingersoll not only applies a kind of test to the book 
of Genesis which he would not think of applying to any 
other book, but he does not even apply liis own test fairly. 
He stands upon the very letter, but he constantly misrep- 
resents and twists the letter. He exaggerates, makes things 
worse than they are; if he can make a bad meaning anyhow 
he does so. He says: "The gentleman that wrote Genesis 
begins by telling us that God made the universe out of 
nothing." It does not say so. It simply says: "In the 
beginning God created the heaven and the earth." A little 
further on he makes p^reat fun of the e^rass beino^ created on 
the second day, while the sun was not created till the third 
day, so that the grass was growing without having " ever 
been touched by a gleam of light." Yet right before him 
were these words, at the beginning of all: " And God said, 
let there be light, and there was light." Of course, the 
whole idea is that of the world's childhood, but why strain 
a point to make it ridiculous? It is a far worse perversion 
where he says: "You will find by reading the second chap- 
ter that God tried to palm ofi* on Adam a beast as bis help- 
meet." Kow there is absolutely no justification for such a 
representation. The whole thing is a gratuitions invention 
of his own. These are small verbal matters, but they show 
the utter unscrupulousness with which those ancient tradi- 
tions are exaggerated and distorted to make better point for 
his ridicule. 

And then, even in larger things, he cannot be decently 



44 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

fair, tliongli the explaining truth may lie on the very sur- 
face, lie quotes the first part of the command against mak- 
ing any graven image, and then goes off into one of its 
tirades about that being a law which was "the death of all 
art" among the Jews. INTot a word about the closing part 
of the command — really the essence of it: " Thou shalt not 
bow down to them, nor worship them ! " Why, even if it 
were as he implies, that Moses utterly prohibited all the art 
of sculpture, the making of idols being merely one part, still, 
which was of most importance to the world — that the Jews 
should have cultivated art a little more, or that they should, 
even at the cost of art altogether, be kept from idolatry? 
But then Mr. IngersoU is not even true in his fact. The 
command Avas only understood as a command against idol- 
making, not against other forms of sculpture, and the best 
proof of this is that they did have other forms of sculpture 
even in Moses' time, and later had art of no ignoble kind. 
Even there in the wilderness we read how the sacred ark was 
by Moses' command shadowed over by the images of two 
cherubim, with outstretched wings made of pure gold, and 
the candlestick was made with branches which were shaped 
like almonds, alternately a bud and a flower. And later, 
when Solomon built the temple, we not only read of two 
similar cherubim, but of colossal size, extending their wings 
over the shrine, but also that " he carved all the walls of the 
house round about with carved figures of cherubim and palm- 
trees and open flowers; " while in his own palace we read of 
sculptured pillars, with pomegranate capitals, and images 
of oxen and lions, round the great brazen ^'laver." 

Or, take his representation of Christians thinking of 
Heaven as a place where their happiness will be enhanced 
by seeing the tortures of the damned. Here he rises to the 
height of his most fiery indignation. And it is a horrible 
idea. But then, who holds it — who preaches it? It is an 



DR. HERFOBD'S REPLY. 45 

idea of Heaven tliat was prevalent among one sect of Cliris- 
tians a century ago. But even they have not preached it 
for a century. And yet he says, without a word of limita- 
tion, "This is the Christian view of Heaven," and makes a 
powerful appeal to his hearers not to give a "dollar to any 
man to preach that falsehood." Why, there is not a church 
in all the land where he could find a man preaching that 
to give his dollar to; no, not even if the person were only 
a stump politician, turned preacher in the slack season be- 
tween campaigns. 

And the same of his representation of the attitude of 
Christianity toward those who do not believe in the early 
traditions of Genesis. He represents Christianity as teach- 
ing that any man who does not believe the " rib story " will 
go to Hell, however good he was in other respects. Is that 
an honest representation? Why, even if all orthodoxy 
preached that, orthodoxy is not all of Christianity. Has 
Col. Ingersoll ever heard of Chauning and Parker and Starr 
King? Are the bodies of the Unitarian church, the Uai- 
versalists, the Christians, the Quakers, not worth a passing 
word? Did he not know when he put that champion joke 
about the " rib story " that he was representing as the teach- 
ing of the churches what many entire churches, and the best 
men in all churches, never have held, nor preached, nor 
countenanced in any way? Yet he comes rampaging into 
the field, with a whoop and a yell, brandishing his shillelah, 
defying Christianity, calling ministers " owls " and " idiots," 
and swooping round as if he were the first who had found 
out a little common sense about the Bible! But after all, 
the real matter at issue is not as to this or that exaggerated 
or unfair criticism of the Old Testament, but has it any 
real, substantial worth? It has. It gives us the origin of 
the world's noblest religious faith; it shows us the purest 
faith of to-day in its first roots in the far-ofi" ancient world; 



43 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

and so I think it strengthens onr conviction that that faith 
is not a temporary or isolated thing that may be mistaken, 
but part of that long development of man which surely 
corresponds to the truth and fact of the universe. 

Dr. Kerford's Story of Moses, "w^ith an Apt Illustration — 
The Germinal Power of the Pentateuch. 

When I hear people treating the Pentateuch as something 
they would like to see done away, I cannot help wishing 
that it could be dug up afresh in these days of curious 
research into the past. Why, suppose that the Jews had no 
such books; and had not known anything of their origin 
except a vague tradition of some sort of migration under 
one Moses, and curiously fitting to this the Egyptian tradi- 
tion — which is, you know, that some thirteen hundred years 
before Christ a great multitude of people had gone out of 
Egypt led by an Egyptian priest, who taught them many 
things contrary to the Egyptian religion, and afterward 
changed his name to Moses. Well, supposing then these 
books of the Pentateuch should be discovered somewhere 
— why, the world would go wild over them. What would 
it matter whether it could be settled that Moses did or did 
not write them — or that pcssibly they were really not writ- 
ten till centuries after, and only preserved what was believed 
about him at that later date — still the fact would remain 
that they take us by traditions, at any rate, so much further 
back into the past, and show us there one of the very noblest 
stories of the world; — for that is what the story of Moses 
is. Take off all the discount you will for exaggeration — I 
dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated — suppose 
the idea of his having been led b}^ God speaking to him to 
have been only his own intense consciousness of what was 
best, ascribed to God; suppose the idea of his having been 
helped by miracles to have been only his own reverent 



DR. EEPFORD'S REPLY. 47 

impression, ascribing every trouble that came on Egypt, 
and every favoring circumstance to his own people, to some 
purposed and direct help from God; all that does not touch 
the essence of the story of Moses ! There it stands — how 
those Hebrews through many generations had sunk into the 
Pariah and Helot class of that great rich Egyptian civiliz- 
ation; and how at last this Moses rose up, to rally them to 
a might}^ effort to get right away into some other land. He 
had been somehow brought up among the Egyptians, trainerl 
in the sacred city, educated among the priests — an adopted 
son of Pharaoh's daughter — but he had given it all up, 
identified himself with his down-trodden people, and at last 
won for them the liberty to go! And they went out — out 
into the ^reat desert waste. What does it matter that the 
tradition of their numbers got perhaps enormously exagger- 
ated ? If there were only a hundredth part — thirty thousand 
instead of three millions in all — there were quite enough to 
task their leader's fortitude to its utmost; and through those 
books we have at least very living glimpses of him, in his 
efforts to keep them from grumbling and getting disheart- 
ened ; in his efforts to keep them true to his simple teach- 
ing of the one Almighty God; in his lonely hours when he 
was listening for the eternal word, and shaping his best 
thoughts which he believed came to him from God, into laws 
for his people. And there is the great fact, you know — 
however he did it — he did guide and lead them through that 
lono: mio^ration, and at last broug^ht them to the land from 
which their fathers had gone out long before, and bade them 
go in and possess it! And that multitude whom he led out 
of Egypt a race of slaves, servile with long oppression, at 
every difficulty talking of going back, he had in that forty 
years knit into a brave, hardy, fierce race — who did go in 
and possess the land and became the progenitors of one of 
the world's noblest races. That is the story of Moses 



48 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

— -just the barest skeleton of it — taking one, the largest, 
most unmistakable features; and I say again there is no 
finer story in history. And what will you say of a man who 
will make fun of it? 

Why, what would you think of a man who would go 
around the country, making fierce fun of Abraham Lincoln, 
holding up his gaunt, lank figure to ridicule, burlesquing 
his speeches, denouncing as lies some of those quaint little 
anecdotes, and holding him upas a fool and an idiot? And 
yet that glorious work that makes Lincoln's name dear — not 
to Americans only but to the lovers of freedom and of man 
in every nation — that work of his was only the modern 
counterpart of what Moses did in the morning of the world! 

But the Pentateuch is most valuable, not for the light it 
throws upon the origin of a people, but for the light it 
throws upon the origin of ideas. In the teachings of Moses, 
in the religion of that little migrating tribe, by-and-by 
fighting for its foothold in Palestine, we have the begin- 
ings of those thoughts from which have sprung the three 
greatest, most living religions of the world — Judaism, 
Christianity and Mahommedanism. Granted, the begin- 
nings are only rude, is that any reason for making fun of 
them? "What would you think of a man who should take 
one of those rude urns that they dig out of the mound build- 
er's graves and put it side by side with some beautiful porce- 
lain of to-day, and scoff and sneer at those early dwellers on 
the earth because the best decoration they could make was 
a few rude scratches in the clay with their flint-knives? 

Already, even so far off, the idea of one Almighty God, 
that which the priests of Egypt held as a sacred mystery — 
if they did hold it — that leader of the Hebrews taught his 
people as the truth for all, and the truth to be kept ever- 
more before them. Already, too, in the old world, where 
every race shaped out its thought of God in some idol form, 



DR. HEBFORD'S REPLY. 49 

that leader was giving them as the second of his great com- 
mands that they should make no idol images at all to wor- 
ship. Already, too, they had that idea of a God of Right- 
eousness ! True, their idea of righteousness was not yet very 
high, but the best they knew they ascribed to God. Where 
in all the ancient world will you find such a description of 
Deity as that which Moses brought with him out of the soli- 
tudes of Sinai? — "The Lord; the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and 
truth; keeping mercy for thousands, bearing with iniquity, 
transgression and sin, but that will by no means clear the 
guilty." 

The Mosaic Religion of Humanity. 

Nor is this divine side of that old Hebrew religion alL 
Mr. Ingersoll is very strong on the religion of humanity. 
Indeed, that is the only real religion, he says. Well, where 
did the religion of humanity begin ? Why, it beg^-n there 
— among those same old Hebrews. The religion of a truer 
thought of God and of a better thought of man went to- 
gether even in their beginnings, as they did afterward when 
they both reached their culmination together in Christ, with 
His great teaching of love to God and love to man. 

Mr. Ingersoll, however, has nothing but the bitterest 
contempt for the morality of the Pentateuch, because it is 
behind the morality of to-day! " See, you are better than 
your God," he cries; "for four thousand years ago He be- 
lieved in polygamy, and you don't! " The trutli of which 
simply is that four thousand years ago polygamy existed 
among the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even 
their prophets do not come to the idea of its being wrong. 
But what is there to be indignant about in that? Simply 
men — whom Mr. Ingersoll regards, in other lectures, as 
having come up from the brutes — had then got only so far 
3 



50 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

in their ideas of marriage. But if their religion is a good 
one, what do you expect to find it doing? Altogether al- I 
tering, even so early, the marriage relation, or purifying 
and elevating it? Surely this is all we can look for, and 
this we find. I know that Mr. Ingersoll says : " There is 
not one word about woman in the Old Testament, except 
the words of shame and humiliation." Well, though he 
says he has read the Bible over again this j^ear, I can only 
conclude he has read it very hurriedly and slightly, for not 
only are there such passages as that of Naomi and Kuth, 
the Shunamite woman, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and 
that most beautiful picture at the close of the book of Prov- 
erbs of a good wife, but I think that throughout woman is 
spoken of in the Bible, not as the slave, but as the compan- 
ion and the helpmate. The " wise-hearted women " share 
the work of making that goodliest of the tents which was in 
the desert wanderings to be the tabernacle; Miriam, the sister 
of Moses, holds the place of a prophetess, and other prophet- 
esses we read of; and the whole law of marriage in the Penta- 
teuch, with its stern punishment of death for adultery, either 
on the part of man as well as woman, shows the process of 
elevation towards that higher law of one wife and one husband 
which had become universal by the time of Christ. 

Or take the slavery question again. Slavery was univer- 
sal in the ancient world. Men had not come anywhere to a 
sense of any inherent wrongfulness in it for a thousand 
years or two after the time of Moses. But mark where 
this finer humanity of the Mosaic religion comes in;* it al- 
ready brings glimpses of the idea of an inalienable right to 
liberty — though not a perfect sight of it. The law of the 
Pentateuch abounds with laws about the relation of master 
and slave, which, as compared with what we know of slavery, 
e. g., among the Greeks and Romans a thousand years later, 
were simply a marvel of noble humanized thought. 



DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 51 

And then as to the general tone and character of that 
Mosaic law. Mr. Ingersoll pooh-poohs the Ten Command- 
ments as merely what men knew before; knew all along. 
But such a law as this: " Thou shalt not have in thy bag 
divers weights, a great and a small; but thou shalt have a 
perfect and just weight — a perfect and just measure shalt 
thou have — for all that do such things, and all that do un- 
righteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God;" 
and this : " If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep he shall 
restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep; " and 
this: "Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the 
stranger as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord 
your God; " and this: "Thou shalt not oppress an hired 
servant that is poor and needy — whether he be of thy breth- 
ren, or of the strangers that are in the land; at his day thou 
shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon 
it, for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it." There is a 
good deal of the religion of humanity about these, isn't 
there? 

And other laws come in here and there with such a kind 
consideration for poverty and need. When a man har- 
vested he must not reap the corners of his field, nor gather 
up the gleanings, and if he forgot a sheaf and left it in the 
field he must not go again and fetch it. " Thou shalt leave 
them for the poor and the stranger." And this: " When a 
man hath taken a new wife he shall not ffo out to war 
neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall 
be free at home one year and shall cheer up his wife whom 
he hath taken." And even in regard to war — in which cer- 
tainly they were fierce enough — what a gleam of kindness 
comes in in that command that when they were besieging a 
city they .must not cut down the fruit trees about it for 
their war purposes, but only trees that they knew were not 
for fruit. Why, I might go on for an hour quoting these 



.52 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 

more merciful laws and showing you the large, grand 
thoughts of duty that pervade that whole system which the 
Jews believed had been given to them by Moses. 

But there is nothing really to fear. For the moment 
many may be led to throw the Bible away, and to give up 
religion as the weak nonsense he so scornfully proclaims it. 
Beligion will abide in the heart of man. And the Bible 
will stand because in it we have the accumulated utterance 
of religion in its best beginnings and along its noblest line 
of development. 



THE JEWISH RABBI S REPLY. 53 



THE JEWISH RABBrS EEPLY. 



We need not pray for Col. Robert IngersolPs soul, for he 
says he has none; and in this instance we are bound to be- 
lieve him, as he is judge, jury and witness in the case; and 
there may be men without souls, as there are some without 
conscience, others without reason, and quite a number with- 
out principle. The first man of whom the Bible says that 
he prayed, was Abraham. He prayed for Abimelech. But 
Col. IngersoU, we suspect, is not smitten with that disease. 
He prayed for the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
to which class belongs no American citizen, of course, as 
'* Mitchell's Geography" substantially proves. Jacob prayed 
when his brother Esau approached him with an armed force; 
and the Colonel has come to us unarmed, and without any 
force except a few harmless agents of the Boston Lecture 
Bureau, who take the money, show the show, and depart in 
peace. Moses prayed for his sister Miriam when she was 
leprous, but Mr. IngersoU is no woman, and his excellent 
exterior betokens no leprosy. Joshua prayed to make the 
sun and moon stand still, but Mr. IngersoU is neither the 
greater nor the lesser light, and to the best of our knowledge 
nobody wants him to stand still at any place. 

Speaking of imagination, it reminds me that Col. Inger- 
soU said he could not imagine the existence of a God. Im- 
agine God! Any professor of philosophy would faint if he 
was told that illogical expression. How can God be im- 



;54 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

agined? Perhaps one of Mr. Ingersoll's manufactured gods 
could be imagined in a disorderly imagination, as only phys- 
ical objects of nature or combinations thereof could be im- 
agined — nothing else. "What kind of a god would that be 
which could be submitted to the imagination of a man with- 
out a soul? It must be the miniature or pocket edition of 
an idol, made by man, such as Col. Ingersoll purchases and 
exhibits to amuse tall babies. It must be that sort of far- 
cical gods which he describes in his burlesques. He is not 
the first quack who would not take his own medicines^ 
although he is certainly among reasoners the first who would 
imagine Deity, for none tries to imagine that which reason 
only can grasp; none will permit himst^f to be led astray 
by imagination where pure reflection only can reach the 
aim. 

The perversion of ideas springs from a mistake about 
Moses. A god or gods have been fabricated at the expense 
of Moses, until each little priest had his own snug little god 
that could be used as the Crusader's emblem or the license 
of the auto-da-fe, to massacre and glut in human gore, or 
the frail woman's last resort of love to make honest men 
out of rogues, pure souls out of the dregs of hell. The god 
or gods variously depicted, miscellaneously described, and 
promiscuously aj)plied become objects of imagination, hence 
also of the farce. The mistake is that Moses was charged 
with all the follies of theological jugglers and sophistical 
bummers. The God whom Moses taught is emphatically 
the God whom no man can see and live, — the Great I Am^ 
who is the I, the Ego, the Subject of the Universe, the law,, 
the life, the love and the intellect of the cosmos, the Eternal 
Jehovah, essence itself, and the absolute substance, in whom 
all things are as all objects of a man's tender love are in his- 
soul, of whom all things came and into whom all return. 
This is not a God fabricated by man, hence He could not 



THE JEWISH RABBVS REPLY, 65 

be imagined by man, as no man can imagine a being supe- 
rior to himself. This is the God taught by Moses ; the other 
gods may be subjected to farce and ribaldry, while the true 
Deity is too sublime even for the pyrotechnical displays of 
Mr. Ingersoll's disentangled humor. It is a mistake about 
Moses which feeds his boiler to tweedle the rusted think- 
apparatus of twaddlers. The God of Moses is too great for 
Mr. Ingersoll; he only deals in gods which can be imag- 
ined, and in speaking of mistakes of Moses he reverently 
passes by the God of Moses. The man is not as bad as his 
reputation. 

I maintain that Col. Robert Ingersoll is not half as bad 
as his reputation. The man was persecuted by his country- 
men, was defeated in his political aspirations by church- 
members, and thinks the Presbyterians have done it. He 
is a man of prominent talents, belonging to the better class; 
all on account of the Presbyterians, he was teased, perse- 
cuted, and wounded in his pride, and so he became a public 
lecturer. But business is business; if one wants to make 
money he must know how. He could imagine that people 
go to the circus to see tlie clown, to the theater to laugh 
over the comedian. People want fun to be amused, alcohol 
to force the blood to the brain, to fill up the vacuum. He 
could see that earnest men who reason on principles would 
not take with the masses. Aware of his own talents as a 
humorist and an orator, of the scarcity of humorists in this 
country, and the plenitude of slang, low comedy, and uncul- 
tivated taste, he could only choose the career which he did 
choose — a career of ribaldry, to laugh over everything holy, 
to sneer alike at human follies, frailties, virtue and piety; 
and as a business man he has chosen well — he makes plenty 
of money and hurts nobody. A moral effect he will never 
have upon anybody, because there is no moral force in -his 
burlesque. He is no Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, no 



56 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

Yoltaire, Strauss, Feuerbacli, or even a Heinricli Heine, 
because he lacks the research, the erudition, the systematical 
learning, and the moral backbone of either of them. He 
will not set Rome on fire in order to sing from his balcony the 
destruction of Troy; he lacks the fire and the torch. It is 
all pyro technical ribaldry, which sweeps away many a con- 
sumptive superstition and laughs many a prejudice out of 
existence; but truth takes care of itself. Let the man 
alone; he is better than his reputation. 

You think, perhaps, I ought to be very angry, because 
the gentleman spoke of the mistakes of Moses, and ridiculed 
the great lawgiver of the Jews. Let me tell you first, any- 
thing over which you laugh leaves no particular impression 
behind. That which goes not though the avenues of reason 
or the depth of the moral sentiment in a short time proves 
effectless. Scorn is a terrible weapon to achieve moment- 
ary success, but it is worse than worthless after a second 
sober thought or a healthy action of the feelings. Then let 
me say, the theology of Moses is certainly beyond the reach 
of Col. Ingersoll, for he is no reasoner; he can spit, but he 
could not think with philosophical minds. He never 
studied through or even read any of the philosophical 
systems of Germany, England, or France; nor has he the 
ability to do it. He is no naturalist of any description, has 
never troubled himself about any specialty thereof, and so 
he talks about matters and things in general as is the 
American custom, what the Germans call Wurst-jphilosophie, 
good enough as jokes or for beer-house reasonings. When 
he speaks of the infinite he becomes too ludicrous for any- 
thing, especially for men of thought to make anything out 
of it. He will not upset the theology of Moses. 

The law of Moses is also secured against the Colonel's 
possible attacks. He will commence no trouble with his 
Blackstone or Hugo Grotius, or the other writers on law 



THE JEWISH RABSrS REPLY. 57 

who mamtaiD that all law rests upon the Mosaic legisla- 
tion. 

Thirty-five hundred years of history, and the common 
consent of the civilized world at this end of the nineteenth 
•century, are a little too much for any man to upset. He 
says he could write a better Decalogue than Moses did, but 
that is said only — he is not going to do it; he will not even 
add a category of law to the ten. 

Well, then, if he is not the man to attack successfully the 
theology or jurisprudence of Moses, I have no cause to ob- 
ject to his lectures. He ridicules Bible stories, but that 
■concerns literalists only, not us. If all the stories of the 
Pentateuch be ridiculed, denied, or otherwise disposed of, it 
does not change an iota in the jurisprudence or theology of 
Moses. Let the literalists take up that part; it does not 
concern us so very much. 

Here, again, is a point which makes me feel bad and badly 
•disposed to the eloquent humorist. Why does he continu- 
ally repeat that which others have said often before him ; 
why does he not hit upon something original? He re- 
hearses old rags in new shoddy, and that is unworthy of a 
man who has any pride about him. He does sometimes 
worse than that; he ignores his opponents, which no honest 
man must do. He speaks a long yarn about the history of 
creation, always assuming an air of originality, without 
having the honesty of mentioning even Dr. J. W. Dawson's 
work, "The Origin of the World," which upsets his whole 
twaddle. It is dishonest to make people believe that a 
thing said is indisputable, when it has been completely 
upset. 

He appeals to the apotlieosis of labor to impeach Moses, 
because it said in the Genesis that God cursed man. " In 
the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread;" and labor is a 
blessing to man. Did all Socialists clap hands? If not, 



58 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

some must have thought this is the language of a dema- 
gogue, who is either a hypocrite or a self-deluded man. La- 
bor and hard labor are two different things, and the " sweat 
of thy brow" points to hard labor, which rests like a curse 
upon the poor man, and is the severest punishment imposed 
on the criminal condemned to hard labor. 

He talks about the creation of woman like an ignorant 
man who has not the remotest idea of the difficulties among 
biologists, considering the differentiation of man and the 
origin of sexes. So he talks about the littleness of the ark 
and smites Charles Darwin in the face, instead of saying 
this proves Darwin's theor}^ on the origin of species. He 
scoffs at the God who destroyed His own children and 
undertal^es to teach the Colonel of Peoria how he should 
educate his. It all depends uj)on what kind of children one 
wishes to bring up. Usually every parent brings up his own 
kind. God wanted them to bring up God-like children, and 
when they would not do it, he got them out of the way in 
preference to destroying human freedom or perpetuating 
wickedness. If it is only to bring up such children as Rob- 
ert Ingersoll, of Peoria, 111., no such stringency is necessary. 
Musquashes grow spontaneously in abundance. Then he 
speaks about 600 pigeons a day for three priests, and does 
not know that there were no pigeons in the wilderness, and 
the Mosaic sacrificial polity was not introduced till Joshua 
had taken the Land of Canaan, and then there were more 
priests than there are to-day humorists in America, for 
Joshua gave them quite a number of cities, and I would 
not be astonished if those American humorists could eat 
more pigeons than they can do good in this world. 

But what is the use to speak of the mistakes of Moses? 
Speak of the mistakes about Moses. Did Moses write the 
Genesis? Says Col. Ingersoll, "I do not know;" and he 
does not know a great many other things. Did Moses write 



THE JEWISH RABBFS REPLY. 59- 

the historical portions of the Pentateuch? Says the Illinois- 
Colonel again, " I do not know." If he has written all that, 
did the translators and commentators which the Colonel 
read represent correctly the ideas of Moses ? " Do n't know," 
says the Colonel. If those writers do represent the matter 
correctly, have those points which the Colonel ridicules 
never been discussed and refuted? " Do n't know," says the 
Colonel; and decent men must not curse; still they are 
permitted to say, " Why do you talk of matters of which you 
know so preciously little? That is all excusable, however,, 
in this case. The humorous and eloquent gentleman is out 
on a lecture tour, and wants to succeed. This can be done- 
by reckless ribaldry only. It makes no difference whether 
Hell or gods. Devil or Moses, Pope or Presbyterian church 
— anything that will pay must be pressed into the service. 
The Colonel's field is small; he has no great choice of sub- 
jects, and he must take the first best to ridicule it and 
make it pay. He has that particular talent, and could not 
do the same work in another field. He cannot criticise 
Aristotle and Emanuel Kant and make it pay, because he 
cannot read them. He cannot ridicule Carlyle or Stuart 
Mill, because he cannot understand them. So he picks up 
some small stories which the children know, and dishes them 
up in his own humoristic way for the amusement of big 
babies. The man understands his business to the T. I 
tell you, he is not as bad as his reputation. I beg a thou- 
sand pardons of Col. Pobert Ingersoll if I have wronged 
him. I did not mean to make fun of him any way. 




^J^cA^^-^iJ^^^ZA^-T^y 



[ Photographed by Mosher.l 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY, 



DE. GIBSOl^f'S EEPLT* 



Unhappily, the attention of Bible students has been al- 
most exclusively directed to certain difficulties. These dif- 
ficulties all arise, as it seems to me, from three sources, and 
the Bible is not to blame for any of them. First source: 
treating the passage as if it were history, whereas it is apoc- 
alypse. Second source: taking it as intended to teach sci- 
ence, especially astronomical and geological science. Third 
source of difficulty : the mistakes of translators. For exam- 
ple, the unfortunate word firmament continually comes to 
the front as one of the " mistakes of Moses." Strange that 
a Latin word should be a mistake of Moses! Did Moses 
know Latin? Did he ever write the letters f, i, r, m, etc.? 
Not only is the word "firmament" not in the Hebrew 
Bible, but it does not represent the Hebrew word at all. 
The word firmament means something strong, solid. The 
Hebrew word for which it is an unfortunate translation, 
signifies something that is very thin, extended, spread out;. 
]ust the best word that could be chosen to signify the at- 
mosphere. 

Then there is the word "whales," that Professor Huxley 
made so merry over a year ago. But the Hebrew does not 
say wliales. The Hebrew word refers to great sea monsters, 
and is just the very best word the Hebrew language afibrds- 
to describe such animals as the plesiosaurus and ichthyo- 
saurus and other creatures that abounded in the time prob- 

*Portions of this reply recently appeared in the daily press signed " Candor ; " 
other portions were selected by the Editor from his new work, just published by 
Randolph & Co., New York, eniitied "The Ages Before Moses." 



<62 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

ably referred to there. Let us only guard against these 
three sources of error, and we shall not find many diffi- 
culties. If we would only avoid the mistakes of Moses' 
critics, we would not show our ignorance by talking about 
the mistakes of Moses. 

We have said that almost everybody knows about the 
difficulties, but how few are there comparatively that know 
about the wonderful harmonies ? So much is said and writ- 
ten about the difficulties, that many have the idea that the 
narrative is full of difficulties — nothing but difficulties in it 
— nothing that agrees with science as we know it now; 
"whereas, when we look at it, we find the correspondencies 
most wonderful all the way through. Let us look at a few 
•of them. And first, the absence of dates. The fact is very 
noteworthy that there is such abundance of space left for the 
long periods, not till quite recently demanded by science. 
And this does not depend on any theory of day-periods; for 
those who still hold to the literal days, find all the room re- 
quired before the first day is mentioned. Xot six thousand 
years ago, but " in the beginning." How grand and how 
true in its vagueness. 

Another negative characteristic worth noticing here is the 
absence of details where none are needed. For example, 
there is almost nothing said in detail about the heavens. 
What is said about the heavens in addition to the bare fact 
of creation, is only in reference to the earth, as, for exam- 
ple, when the sun and moon are treated of, not as separate 
worlds, but only in their relation to this earth as giving 
light to it and affording measurements of time. There is 
no attempt to drag in the spectroscope! 

Ingersoll Betrays His Ignorance. 

A certain infidel lately seemed to think he had made a 
point against the Bible by remarking that the author of it 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 63, 

bad compressed tlie astronomy of the universe into five 
words. Just think of the ignorance this betrays. It pro- 
ceeds on the assumption that the author of this apocalypse 
intended to teach the world the astronomy of the universe; 
and then, of course, it would have been a very foolish thing 
for him to discuss the whole subject in five words. Whereas, 
in this very reticence we have a note of truth. If this work 
had been the work of some mere cosmogonist, some theo- 
rist as to the origin of the universe, he would have been sure 
to have given us a great deal of information about the stars. 
But a prophet of the Lord has nothing to do with astrono- 
my as such. All that he has to do with the stars is to make 
it clear that the most distant orbs of light are included in 
the domain of the Great Supreme, and this he can do as well 
in ^YQ words as in five thousand; and so, wisely avoiding 
all detail, he simply says, " He made the stars also." There 
was danger that men might suppose some power resident 
in these distant stars distinct from the power that ruled the 
earth. He would have them to understand that the same 
God that rules over this little earth, rules to the uttermost 
bounds of the great universe. And this great truth he lays 
on immovable foundations by the sublimely simple words, 
^' He made the stars also." But passing from that which 
is merely negative, see how many positive harmonies there 

are. 

Harmony of Science and Genesis. 

First, there is the fact of a beginning. The old infidel 
objection used to be that " all things have continued as they 
were from the beginning of the creation." ISTobody pre- 
tends to take that position now that science points so clearly 
to beginnings of everything. You can trace back man to 
his beginning in the geological cycles. You can trace back 
mammals to their beginning; birds, fishes, insects to their 
beginnings; vegetation to its beginning; rocks to their 



64 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

beginning. The general fact of a genesis is immovably 
established by science. 

Secondly, " The heavens and the earth." IS'ote the order 
Though almost nothing is said about the heavens, yet what 
is said is not at all in conflict with what we now know about 
them. We know now that the earth is not the center of 
the universe. Look forward to Genesis iv. 2, and you will 
find the transition to the reverse order — quite appropriate 
there, as we shall see in the next lecture; but here, where 
the genesis of all things, the origin of the universe, is the 
subject, it is not the earth and the heavens, but " in the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth." 

Thirdly, there is the original chaos. " The earth was 
without form and void." Turn to the early pages of any 
good modern scientific book, that attempts to set forth the 
genesis of the earth from a scientific standpoint, and you 
will find just this condition described. Observe, too, in 
passing, how carefully the statement is limited to the earth. 
The universe was not chaotic then. 

Fourthly, the work of creation is not a simultaneous, but 
an extended one. If the author had been guessing or 
theorizing, he would have been much more likely to hit on 
the idea of simultaneous, than successive creation. But the 
idea of successive creation is now proved by science to be 
true. 

Fifthly, there is a progressive development, and yet not 
a continuous progression without any drawbacks. There 
are evenings and mornings; just what science tells us of 
the ages of the past. Here it is worth while perhaps to 
notice the careful use of the word " created." An objec- 
tion has been made to the want of continuity in the so-called 
orthodox doctrine of creation, the orthodox doctrine being 
supposed to be that of fresh creation at every. point. But 
the Bible is not responsible for many " fresh creations." 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 6-5 

The word '^created " is only used three times in the record. 
First, as applied to the original creation of the universe, 
possibly in the most embryonic state. " In the beginning 
God created the heavens and the earth." ISText, in connec- 
tion with the introduction of life (v. 2), and last, in refer- 
ence to the creation of man (v. 27). In no other place is 
anything said about direct creation. It is rather making, 
appointing, ordering, saying " Let there be." " Let the 
waters bring forth," etc. l!^ow, is it not a significant fact 
that these three points where, and where alone, the idea of 
absolute creation is introduced, are just the three points at 
which the great apostles of continuity find it impossible to 
make their connections? You will not find any one that is 
able to show any other origin for the spirit of man than the 
Creator Himself. Tou cannot find any one that is able to 
show any other origin of animal life than the Creator Him- 
self. There have been very strenuous efibrts made a great 
many times to show that the living may originate from the 
not-living; but all these efforts have failed. And the origin 
of matter is just as mysterious as the origin of life, ^o 
other origin can be even conceived of the primal matter of 
the universe than the fiat of the great Creator. Thus we 
find the word " creation " used just at the times when 
modern science tells us it is most appropriate. 

Sixthly, the progression is from the lower to the higher. 
An inventor would have been much more likely to gness 
that man was created first, and afterward the other creatures 
subordinate to him. But the record begins at the bottom 
o-f the scale and goes up, step by step, to the top: again, 
just what geology tells us. All these are great general 
correspondencies; but we might, 

Seventhly, go into details and find liarmonies even there, 

all the way through. Take tlie fact of light appearing on 

the first day. The Hebrew word for " light " is wide enough 
5 



66 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. 

to cover the associated phenomena of heat and electricity, 
and are not these the primal forces of the universe? Again, 
it used to be a standard difficulty with sceptics that light 
was said to exist before the sun was visible from the earth. 
Science here has come to the rescue, and who doubts it now? 
It is very interesting to see a distinguished geologist like 
Dana using this very fact that light is said to have existed 
before the sun shone upon the earth as a proof of the divine 
origin of this document, on the ground that no one would 
have guessed what must have seemed so unlikely then. So 
much for the progress toward the Bible which science has 
made since the day when a sceptical writer said of the 
Mosaic narrative, " It would still be correct enough in great 
principles were it not tor one individual oversight and one 
unlucky blunder! " — the oversight being the solid firmament 
(whose oversight?), and the blunder, light apart from the 
sun (whose blunder?). 

I have spoken already about the words " created " and 
" made," in relation to the discriminating use of them. 
This word raqia, too, how admirable it is to express the 
tenuity of our atmosphere, especially as contrasted with the 
clumsy words used by the enlightened Greeks (stereoma) 
the noble Romans (firmamentum), and even by learned 
Englishmen of the nineteenth century (firmament)! And 
not to dwell on mere words, as we well might, look at the 
general order of creation: vegetation before animal life, 
birds and fishes before mammals, and all the lower animals 
before man. Is not that just the order you find in geology? 
More particularly, while man is last he is not created on a 
separate day. lie comes in on the sixth day along with the 
higher animals, yet not in the beginning, but toward the 
close of the period. Again, just what geology tells us. 



DB. GIBSON'S REPLY. 67 

The Harmony of Genesis and Science, not the Result of 
Guess "Work, but of Inspiration. 

These are only some of the many wonderful harmonies 
between this old revelation and modern science. I would 
like to see the doctrine of chances applied to this problem, 
to determine what probability there would be of a mere 
guesser or inventor hitting upon so many things that cor- 
respond with what modern science reveals. I don't believe 
there would be one chance in a million! Is it not far 
harder for a sensible man to believe that this wonderful 
apocalypse is the fruit of ignorance and guess-work, than 
that it is the product of inspiration? It is simply absurd to 
imagine that an ignorant man could have guessed so hap- 
pily, ISTay, more. Let any of the scientific men of to-day 
set themselves down to write out a history of creation in a 
, space no larger than that occupied by the first chapter of 
' Genesis and I do not believe they could improve on it at all. 
And if they did succeed in producing anything that would 
pass for the present, in all probability in ten years it would 
I be out of date. Our apocalypse of creation is not only bet- 
* ter than could be expected of an uninspired man in the 
days of the world's ignorance, but it is better than Tyndall, 
1 or Huxley, or Haeckel could do yet. If they think not, let 
them take a single sheet of paper and try! 

. , . . It is of great importance to remember that the sym- 
bolism attaches to the form, and not to the substance of the 
history. To call this whole story of the Fall a mere alle- 
gory, is to take away from it all historical reality. Let us 
distinguish carefully between the reality of the history, 
which is a very important thing, and the liter aliiy of it, 
which is of minor importance. It is very unfortunate that 
so much time is often spent upon the mere letter, regardless 
l»of the warning of the great apostle: " The letter killeth, 



68 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

but the spirit givetli life. This accounts for nine-tenths of 
the difficulties people have about it. Suppose a person, 
seeing a cocoanut for the first time, and being told it was 
good for food, should spend all his time gnawing away at 
the shell, and never get at the kernel. No wonder of his 
verdict should be, it is not fit to eat. So jou will find that 
most of the people who have insuperable difficulties with 
the Bible are those who are busying themselves all the time 
about the shell and never get hold of the kernel. If they 
could only seize the kernel they would so readily see the 
beauty and enjoy the taste, and find the use of it; and then, 
perhaps, they would begin to see some beauty and some 
usefulness in the shell too. " The letter killeth, but the 
Spirit giveth life." 

A very good illustration of this is found in the fifteenth 
verse of the third chapter, where we read about " the seed 
of the woman bruising the head of the serpent." The liter- 
alists get nothing more out of it than a declaration that In 
time to come serpents will annoy the descendants of Eve by 
biting at their heels, and on the other hand, the descendants 
of Eve will destroy serpents by crushing their heads! The 
mere shell of the thing manifestly. The reality, as pictured 
there, is of a great conflict to go on throughout all these 
ages of development; a great conflict between the forces of 
good on the one hand, and the forces of evil on the other. 
Of this conflict the issue is not doubtful. There is to be 
serious trouble all the while from the forces of evil, but in 
the end these forces will be crushed. There is One coming 
— a descendant of this same woman, called here " the seed 
of the woman" — who will at last "bruise the head of the 
serpent," and gain the victory, and bring in that glorious 
era when sin and suffering and pain and death shall have 
all rolled away into the past. There is a great deal more 
than this in that wonderful verse — more than we would 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 69 

have time to tell tliougli we spent a whole hour on it. We 
only refer to it now as an illustration. 

And now, what matters it whether you take the " ser- 
pent " that tempted Eve to be a real and literal serpent, or 
the mere (phenomenal) form of a serpent assumed by the 
Spirit of Evil for the purpose? or even whether the serpent 
form is connected with the old style of pictorial representa- 
tion? All that is minor and subordinate. There is no use 
of wasting time on it. All we want to be sure of is the 
truth, that there was a tempter, an evil spirit, that in a 
seductive form tempted our first parents and they fell. Let 
us by all means beware of allowing our time to be frittered 
away by mere trivial questions of the letter, instead of mak- 
ing it our great aim to see and to seize the great spiritual 
truths set forth in this old and simple record. 

There are many who represent this book of the Genera- 
tions as a second edition of the Genesis, or separate account 
of the creation ; and of course they find difficulty in compar- 
ing the two. All their difficulty, as we shall see, comes from 
their not understanding the passage as a whole, their not 
perceiving what it was intended to teach. It will help us to 
meet this difficulty if we follow the same order of ideas as in 
the exposition of Genesis i., viz.: God, ISTature, Man. In all 
we shall find marked differences. But these differences, in- 
stead of presenting any difficulty, will have their reason 
made abundantly manifest. 

God. 

First, then, there is a different name for God introduced 
here. All through the Genesis it has been " God said," 
"God made," " God created." ^ow it is invariably, "Je- 
hovah God " (Lord God in our version). And this is the 
only continuous passage in the Bible where the combination 
is used. How is this explained? Yery easily. In the 



70 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

apocalypse of the Genesis, God makes Himself known sim- 
ply as Creator. Sin has not yet entered, and so tlie idea of 
salvation has no place. In this passage sin is coming in, 
and along with it the promise of salvation. Now the name 
Jehovah is always connected with the idea of salvation. It 
is the covenant name. It is the name which indicates 
God's special relation to His people, as their Saviour and 
Redeemer. This name is introduced now, because God is 
about to make Himself known in anew character. He ap- 
peared in Genesis simply as Creator. He appears now in 
the book of the Generations as Kedeemer; and so we get 
the name Jehovah in place of the name God. But lest any 
one should suppose from the change of name that there is 
any change in the person; lest any one suppose that He 
who is to redeem us from sin and death, is a different being 
from Him who created the heavens and the earth, the two 
names are now combined — Jehovah God. The combination 
is retained throughout the entire narrative of the Fall to 
make the identification sure. Thereafter either name is 
used by itself without danger of error. 

Nature. 

Look next at the way in which ISTature is spoken of here. 
When you look at it aright, you find there is no repetition. 
Nature in the Genesis is universal nature. God created all 
things. But here, nature comes in, as it has to do immedi- 
ately with Adam. Now see the effect of this. It at once 
removes difficulties, which many speak of as of great mag- 
nitude. 

In the first place, it is not the whole earth that is now 
spoken of, but a very limited district. Our attention is 
narrowed down to Eden, and the environs of Eden, a limi- 
ted district in a particular part of the earth. Hence the 
difficulty about there not being rain in the district (" earth") 



DR. GIBSON'S BE PLY. 71 

disappears. Let me here remind you once or all that the 
Hebrew word for earth and for land or district is the same. 
See Gen. xii., 1., where the word is twice used, translated 
"country" and "land." 

Again, it is not the vegetable kingdom as a whole that is 
referred to in the fifth verse, but only the agricultural and 
horticultural products. The words "plant," "field" and 
"grew" (v. 5) are new words, not found in the creation 
record."^ In Gen. i. the vegetable kingdom as a whole was 
spoken of, I^ow, it is simply the cereals and garden herbs, 
and things of that sort; and here instead of coming into col- 
lision with the previous narrative, we have something that 
corresponds with what botanists tell us, that field and gar- 
den products are sharply distinguished in the history of 
nature from the old flora of the geological epochs. 

In the same way it is not the whole animal kingdom that 
is referred to in verse nineteen, but only the domestic ani- 
mals, those w^ith which man was to be especially associated, 
and to which he was very much more intimately related 
than to the wild beasts of the field. It may be easy to 
make this narrative look ridiculous, by bringing the wild 
beasts in array before Adam, as if any companionship with 
them were conceivable. But when we bear in mind that 
reference is made here to the domestic animals, there is 
nothing at all inappropriate in noticing that while there is a 
certain degree of companionship possible between man and 
some of those animals, as the horse and dog, yet none of 
these was the companion he needed. 

In the first chapter of Genesis, nature is the great theme. 
We are carried over universal nature, and the great truth is 
there set forth, that God has created all things. In the sec- 
ond chapter of Genesis, man is the great theme, and conse- 



* The correct translation of the fifth verse is: "Now no plant of the 
field was yet in the land, and no herb of the field was growing." 



72 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

quently nature is treated of only as it circles around liim, 
and is related to him. This sufficiently accounts for the 
difference between the two. 

Man. 

Passing now from nature to Man, we find again a marked 
difference. In Gen. i. we are told, "God created man in 
His own image; in the image of God created He him." 
And here: "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground." (ii. 7.) Some people tell as there is a contra- 
diction here. 7^ there any contradiction, let me ask? Are 
not hoth of them true? Is there not something that tells 
you that there is more than dust in your composition? Is 
there not something in you that tells you, you are related 
to God the Creator? ^Yhen you hear the statement that 
" God made man in His own image, is there not a response 
awakened in you — something in you that rises up and says, 
It is true? On the other hand, we know that man's body 
is formed of the dust of the earth. We find it to be true 
in a more literal sense than was formerly supposed, no\v 
that chemistry discloses the fact that the same elements 
enter into the composition of man's body, as «ire found by 
analysis in the " dust of the s^round." 

And not only are both these statements true, but each is 
appropriate in its place. In the first account, when man's 
place in universal nature was to be set forth — man as he 
issued from his Maker's hand— was it not appropriate that 
his higher nature should occupy the foreground? His lower 
relations are not entirely out of sight even there, for he is 
introduced along with a whole group of animals created on 
the sixth day. But while his connection with them is sug- 
gested, that to which emphasis is given in the Genesis is 
his relation to his Maker. But now that we are going to 
hear about his fall, about his shame and degradation, is it 



VR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 73 

not appropriate that the lower rather than the higher part 
of his nature should be brought into the foreground, inas- 
much as it is there that the danger lies ? It was to that part 
of his nature that the temptation was addressed; and so we 
read here, "God formed man of the dust of the ground." 
Yet here, too, there is a hint of his higher nature, for it is 
added, "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," 
or as we have it in another passage, "The inspiration of the 
Almighty gave him understanding." 

In this connection it is worth while to notice the use of 
the words "created" and "formed." '^ God created man 
in His own image." So far as man's spiritual and immor- 
tal nature was concerned it was a new creation. On the 
other hand, "God fo7^ed man out of the dust of the 
around." We are not told He created man's body out of 
nothing. We are told, and the sciences of to-day confirm 
it, that it was formed out of existing materials. 

Woman. 

Then, in relation to Woman, there is the same appropri- 
ateness 'in the two narratives. In the former her relations 
to God are prominent: "God created man in His own im- 
age. In the image of God created He him; male and fe- 
male created He them "—man in His image; woman in His 
imaae. In the latter, it is not the relation of woman to 
her Maker that is brought forward, but the relation of wo- 
man to her husband. Hence the specific reference to her 
oro-anic connection with her husband. 

Here, again, it is very easy for one that deals in literali- 
ties to raise difficulties, forgetting that there is no intention 
here to detail scientifically the process of woman's forma- 
tion,but simply to indicate that she is organically connected 
with her husband. It is here proper to remark that the ren- 
dering "rib" is probably too specific. The word is more 



74 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

frequently used in the general sense of " side." As an ev- 
idence that there is no intention to give here any physio- 
logical information as to the origin of woman, we may refer 
to the words of Adam: " This is now bone of my bone and 
fiesli of my flesh. She shall be called Woman, because she 
was taken out of man." And now, is there anything irra- 
tional in the idea that woman should be formed out of man? 
Is there anything more mysterious or inconceivable in the 
formation of woman out of man, than in the original form- 
ation of man out of dust? Let us conceive of our origin 
in any way we choose, it is full of mystery. Though there 
may be mystery connected with what is said in the Bible, 
there will be just as much mystery connected with any other 
account you try to give of it. Matthew Henry, in his 
quaint and half-humorous way, really gets nearer to the 
true spirit of the narrative than any physiological inter- 
preter can, when he makes the remark that some of you 
may be familiar with, " that woman was taken out of man, 
not out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be 
trampled underfoot; but out of his side to be equal to him, 
under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be 
beloved." Another remark of his is worth quoting. Re- 
ferring to the fact of Adam's being first formed and then 
Eve, and the claim of priority and consequent superiority, 
as made on his behalf by the apostle Paul, he says: "If 
man is the head, she is the crown — a crown to her husband, 
the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust re- 
fined, but the woman was dust double-refined — one remove 
further from the earth." 

But, Matthew Henry apart, one thing is certain, that this 
old Bible narrative, while it has not done that which it was 
never intended to do, while it has given no scientific expla- 
nation of either man's origin or woman's origin, has never- 
theless accomplished its great object. It has given woman 



DB. GIBSON'S REPLY. 75 

lier true place in the world. It is only in Bible lands that 
woman has her true place; and it is only there that marriage 
has its proper sacredness. Here as everywhere else, we see 
the practical power of the Bible. It was not written to 
satisfy curiosity, but to save and to bless; and most salutary 
and most blessed has been the influence of these earliest 
words about woman, setting forth her true relation to man 
and to God, to her earthly husband and her heavenly Father. 

Mistakes Respecting Labor and Death, Corrected. 

. . . The Bible has been charged with representing labor 
as a curse. The charge is not true. On the contrary, we are 
told that Adam was appointed in Eden to dress the garden 
and keep it. The law of labor came in among the blessings 
of Eden, along with the law of obedience and the marriage 
law. It is a slander on the Bible to say that it represents 
labor as a curse. It is not the labor that is the curse. It is 
the thorns and the thistles. It is the hardness of the labor. 
" In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread." Labor 
would have been easy and pleasant otherwise. 

Then in regard to death. There are those who represent 
the Bible as if it taught that death was unknown in the 
world until after the Fall. And then they point us to the 
reign of death throughout the epochs of geology as contra- 
dicting the Bible. ITow, the Bible teaches nothing of the 
kind. On the contrary, there seems rather to be a suggestion 
that death was in existence among the lower animals all the 
way through. ITot to speak of the probability that one of 
the divisions of animals, mentioned in the first chapter of 
Genesis, corresponds w^th the carnivora, is there not some- 
thing in the way the subject of death is introduced, which 
rather suggests the idea that it was already known ? It was 
a new thing to Adam. It was not a new thing to animal 
life. Man had been created with relations to mortality 



76 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

below him, but with relations also to immortality above 
him. Had he not fallen, his immortal nature would have 
ruled his destiny; but now that he has separated himself 
from God by his sin, his lower relations, his mortal relations, 
must rule his destiny. Instead of having as his destiny the 
prospect of being associated with God in a hapjjy immor- 
tality, he is degraded from that position, and is henceforth 
associated with the animals in their mortality. We are told 
that " death passed upon all men^ because all have sinned." 
But you do not find a passage in the Bible asserting that 
death passed upon the animals because of man's sin. 

The Deluge and its Difficulties — Not Universal — Ararat 

Originally a District (Alas ! Ingersoll Calls it a High 

Mountain) — Other Deluges. 

. . . "We must here touch a little on the difficulties con- 
nected with the story of the flood. These difficulties are 
almost all founded upon the idea that the deluge was univer- 
sal; that it covered the highest tops of the Himalayas in 
India, the Rocky Mountains here, and all the mountains over 
all the earth. It is but reasonable, then, to ask if there is 
good reason for insisting that it was universal? 

I know of only three strong reasons that are given for this 
position. The first is the use of the term " earth " continu- 
ally throughout the narrative, which only proves that tho«e 
who translated the Bible into English, believed the flood to 
have been universal. As we have had occasion already to 
prove, the word ''earth " in. Hebrew means just as readily a 
limited district. Why do not those who insist so strongly 
on the wide signification of "earth" here, not insist upon 
the same interpretation in such a passage as Genesis, xii. 1, 
and make it an article of faith that Abraham left the world 
altogether and went to another, when he left Ur of the 
Chaldees and went to Canaan? The second argument for 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 77 

universality is found in universal expressions, the strongest 
of which is Gen. vii. 19: "And the waters prevailed ex- 
ceedingly upon the earth/ and all the high hills that were 
under the whole heaven were covered." IsTow remember 
that this is the account of an eye-witness, vividly describing 
just what he saw, water on every side, water all around, 
nothing but water — even the mountains to the farthest verge 
of the horizon covered over with water. When, in the book 
of Job, we read of the lightning flashing over the whole 
heaven, the meaning surely can not be that a lightning flash 
starts at a certain degree of latitude and longitude, and 
makes a journey right round the world to the point where 
it started. " The whole heavens " is evidently bounded by 
the horizon. The third reason which has led people to sup- 
pose the whole earth was covered witli water, is found in 
the tradition that the ark rested on Mount Ararat. The 
tradition, we say, for that is all the authority there is for the 
idea. In Gen. vii. 4, we are told that the ark rested on the 
mountains or highlands of " Ararat." The word " Ararat " 
only occurs other two times in the Bible, and in neither 
place does it refer to what was only long afterward called 
Mt. Ararat. In Old Testament times Ararat was not a 
mountain at all, but a district, on some of the highlands of 
which the ark rested. A moment's thought will show that 
it could not be on the top of Ararat. It would require one 
of the hardiest mountaineers to perform such a feat as the 
climbing of Ararat. It would be the most inconvenient 
place you could think of for the ark to rest on. When you 
look fairly at these three arguments that are urged in sup- 
port of a universal deluge, you will find that none of them 
really demand it. 

On the other hand, there are things that seem to point 
the other way. In the eleventh verse of the seventh chap- 
ter we are told that " in the second month, the seventeenth 



78 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

day of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep 
broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." 
There is no indication there of the sudden creation of such 
a body of water as would cover the earth to the depth of 
30,000 feet above the old sea-level. The causes that are as- 
signed are just such as could be most readily and naturally 
used. It may be worth while to notice here in passing, an 
attempt which has been made recently to cast ridicule upon 
the story of the flood, by representing the Bible as if it 
attributed the deluge to nothing else than a long, heavy 
rain, whereas the first importance is given to an entirely 
different cause: "the fountains of the great deep were bro- 
ken up." That is just what would appear to one who was 
describing such a scene as we imagine this to be. Suppose 
there had been some great submergence of the land there, 
as has taken place in other parts of the world. There would 
be a rushing up of water from below, from "the fountains 
of the great deep." 

Again, in the first verse of the eighth chapter, natural 
agency is made use of: " God made a wind to pass over the 
earth, and the waters assuaged." There is no reason why 
we should suppose a greater miracle performed than was 
necessary. Still further; turn to the tenth verse of the ninth 
chapter, where God says : " I establish my covenant with 
you, and with every living creature that is witli you; from 
all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth." 
What were those beasts of the earth thus distinguished from 
those going out of the ark? Probably they were those that 
came from the area of land not covered by the flood. 

Then again, attention is called to the purpose of the flood, 
which was simply to destroy the race of men, and it is not 
to be supposed they had traveled a great distance by this 
time from their original place of abode. The extent of the 
flood need not have been any greater than was necessary to 
submerge that area. 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 79 

Further, when we take this view, not only do geological 
and other difficulties disappear, but there is decided confir- 
mation from modern scientific research. Tliere is no evi- 
dence in geology that there was in any period of the earth's 
history, a flood great enough to overtop the Rocky Moun- 
tains, but there are evidences of floods as great as this one 
must have been, for the purpose of destroying the race. I 
do not know how it is in the immediate region where the 
flood is supposed to have been. I do not know whether 
geologists have explored it siifliciently; but this is certain, 
that there are evidences of similar floods in other parts of 
the world. Some of our own geologists have discovered 
evidences of them in this very neighborhood. You have not 
to go very far from Chicago to find such traces of sudden, 
powerful, and transient diluvial action. Then, finally, this 
view of the deluge removes, of course, all difficulty about 
the number of animals in the ark, because all that was 
necessary was, that the species more nearly connected with 
man, those found in the region that was submerged, should 
be represented in the ark. 

But after all, the question of extent is of quite minor 
importance so long as it is conceded that it was universal in 
the sense of destroying all but the family of JSToah. T/ie 
reality of the judgment is the great thing, and of this we have 
abundant confirmation from tradition. We find legends of 
a flood everywhere. We find them among the Semitic and 
Aryan and Turanian races. We find them east and west, 
and north and south; in savage nations and civilized nations; 
on continents and in islands; in the old world and in the 
new. And if Egypt is a solitary exception, which is very 
doubtful, but if it is, the exception is accounted for by the 
simple fact that in that country they have floods Q\erj year. 

Here again, as in the traditions of the JFall, there is 
difl'erence enough to show which is the original and true. 



80 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. 

Other traditions of the £ood are polytheistic, whereas here 
we have the one living and true God. Those are full of 
mythological elements, whereas here is a plain narrative, 
with the impressive scene vividly, but quite simply, depicted. 
In heathen traditions, too, you find many grotesque items 
and exaggerations, as for instance, when the ark is described 
as three-fourths of a mile long, and drops of rain the size 
of a bull's head; and, generally speaking, a conspicuous ab- 
sience of that moral purpose which is so impressive and all- 
pervading in the narrative before us. 

Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor. 

. . . There are those in our day who find a stumbling- 
block at the very threshold of the Christian life, in the fancy, 
that what is required of them in order to salvation, is the cred- 
iting of all tlie details of a long history extending from the 
first man to the last man, from Adam to the consummation 
of all things; and long accustomed to that sceptical attitude 
of mind w^hich questions all things, they think it would 
take them a life-time (as indeed it would) to verify Qverj 
statement that is made from Genesis to Kevelation, and 
clear them from all possible objections; and so they do not 
venture at all. But remember, it is never said: " Believe 
everything that is in the Bible and you will be saved." Ali, 
there have been many who believed everything in the Bible, 
who never thought of questioning a sentence in it, who will 
find themselves none the better for their easy acquiescence 
in the statements of a book which they had been taught to 
accept as inspired. There is no such word written as, 
"Believe the Bible and you will be saved." IN^o. It is 
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be 
saved." Do not trouble yourselves in the first instance about 
questions connected w^ith the book of Genesis, or difficulties 
suggested by the book of Revelation. Let the wars of the 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 81 

Jews alone in the meantime, and dismiss Jonah from your 
mind. Look to Jesns ; get acquainted with Him ; listen to 
His word; believe in Him; trust Him; obey Him. That 
is all that is asked of jou in the first instance. After you 
have believed on Christ and taken Him as your Saviour 
your Master, your Model, you will not be slow to find out 
that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine and for reproof, and for correction, 
and for instruction in righteousness." You may never 
have all your difficulties solved, or all your objections met; 
but though difficulties may still remain, and interrogation 
points be scattered here and there over the wide Bible-field, 
you will be sure of your foundation; you will feel that your 
feet are planted on the " Rock of Ages," even on Him of 
whom God, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, said: 
" Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried 
stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that 
believeth shall not make haste." 



Candor v. Injustice — Dr. Gibson's Pointed Summary. 

The prevailing feeling among intelligent readers of the 
Bible in reference to the profane and coarse assaults made 
on it by Mr. Bobert IngersoU, is that few people are so 
ignorant as to be imposed upon by his vulgar witticisms. 
But, inasmuch as there are not a few who accept without 
inquiry his account of what is in the Bible, it may be well 
to give a few illustrations of his unscrupulousness in put- 
ting "mistakes" into the Bible which he either knows or 
ought to know, are not there. 

He asserts positively that Moses must have understood 

by firmament something solid, though every one who has 

studied the subject knows, and the fact has been published 

again and again, that the Hebrew word means something 

6 



82 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

exceedingly attenuated, being the very best word in the 
language to designate the atmosphere; while the mistake 
found in the English word " firmament," is due to the sci- 
ence of Alexandria, where in the third century before 
Christ, the " expanse " of Moses was translated " stereoma" 
(firmament) to suit the advanced astronomy of the time. 

When, in speaking of the vegetation of the third day, he 
says, " ISTot a blade of grass had even been touched by a 
single gleam of light," is he dealing fairly with a narrative 
that makes light its first creation? 

When he accuses Moses of compressing the astronomy 
of the universe into five words, is he dealing fairly with a 
narrative that does not profess to give any astronomy at 
all, but, after a general reference to the heavens and the earth 
as created in the beginning, restricts itself to the earth and 
its "environment?" Any intelligent person can see that 
this is the reason why sun, moon and stars are referred to 
only in their relations to the earth. 

When he represents the first and second chapters of Gen- 
esis as a varying repetition of the same story, is it fair to 
withhold all reference to the difierent purport and object of 
the two narratives, which fully and satisfactorily explains 
the variation? 

Is it fair to speak of the deluge to represent it as ascribed 
to nothing but rain, when the Bible expressly says, "All 
the fountains of the great deep were broken up," evidently 
pointing to such a subsidence of the land as is familiar to 
any one acquainted with geology. 

Is it fair to make the Bible responsible for the Armenian 
tradition that the ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat, 
17,000 feet high, when the Bible nowhere, from Genesis to 
Hevelation, makes any such statement? The district of 
Ararat on the mountains or highlands of which the ark 
rested is not the " Agri-Dagh" to which the name Ararat 



DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 83 

has in modern times been given; and Mr. IngersolPs 
ignorant mistake about it is o± the same kind as that of the 
bumpkin who should inquire for the Coliseum in Rome, ]N". 
Y., or seek the tomb of Leonidas in Sparta, Wisconsin. 

It will be at once seen that with this childlike ignorance 
is connected the Ingersoll nonsense that the water was five 
and a half miles deep. So says the ignorant critic, while 
the simple and reasonable statement of the Bible is: 
"Fifteen cubits upwards did the vrater prevail." As for the 
submersion of even the hills to the utmost verge of the 
horizon, the subsidence of the land was quite sufficient to 
accomplish it without resorting to the supposition of any 
unreasonable quantity of water. 

Is it fair, when Mr. Ingersoll wishes to render ridiculous 
the rate of increase among the Israelites in Egypt, to rep- 
resent the length of their stay there as 215 years, when 
Moses says (Exodus, xii., 40): " ISTow the sojourning of the 
children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years." 
The only other place in the Pentateuch where the length of 
their stay is referred to is in the prediction concerning it in 
Genesis xv., where it is put in round numbers at 400 
years. To do Mr. Ingersoll justice, it is admitted that 
certain theologians, on the strength of one or two passages 
in the 'New Testament and some genealogical difficulties, 
have favored shortening the period, but the subject was not 
the mistakes of Moses, but of theologians; and again we 
ask. Was it fair, without a word of apology or explanation, 
to deduct more than two centuries from the time Moses 
gives, and then. make all his coarse, not to say indecent, 
ridicule turn on the shortness of the time? 

One hardly know^s how to characterize the infamy of such 
a passage as that about the bird-eating priests during the 
time of rapid increase, in view of the fact that there were 
no priests at all, and no such rule as he refers to during the 



84 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

entire 430 years! The consecration of Aaron, the first 
priest, did not take place till after the Law was given at 
Sinai, and the ordinance relating to the offering of the 
pigeons was still later. These are mere specimens of the 
mistakes and misrepresentations which form the warp and 
woof of this lecture. 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 85 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAT OF 

THE BIBLE. 



SCIENTISTS. 

The grand old book of God still stands, and this old earth, 
the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more 
it will sustain and illustrate the sacred word. — Professor 
Dana, 

Infidelity has, from time, erected her imposing ramparts, 
and opened fire upon Christianity from a thousand batter- 
ies. But the moment the rays of truth were concentrated 
upon their ramparts they melted away. The last clouds of 
ignorance are passing, and the thunders of infidelity are 
•dying upon the ear. The union and harmony of Christian- 
ity and science is a sure token that the flood of unbelief and 
ignorance shall never more go over the world. — Professor 
Hitchcock. 

All human discoveries seem to be made only for the pur- 
pose of confirming, more and more strongly, the truths 
contained in the sacred Scriptures. — Sir John Hersohel.' 

The Bible furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the 
thoughts that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar 
universe. — 0. M. Mitchell. 

In my investigation of natural science, I have always 
found that whenever I can meet with anything in the Bible, 



86 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, 

on any subject, it always affords me a fine platform on whicb 
to stand. — Lieutenant Maury 

If the God of love is most appropriately worshiped in 
the Christian temple, the God of nature may be equally 
honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty 
minarets, the philosopher may summon the faithful to 
prayer; and the priest and the sage exchange altars without 
the compromise of faith or knowledge. — Sir David Brews- 
ter. 

A nation's intellectual progress has always followed — not 
preceded — some moral impulse. The history of the fine arts 
shows that some form of religion gave them their earliest 
impulse. There has never been a great genius but has been 
inspired in some sense by religion. The thoughts of the 
intellect are lofty in proportion as the sentiments of the 
heart are profound. If we begin the attempt to improve 
men with the intellect we end where we begun. Education 
will not remove corruption. It may guide vice as in ancient 
Rome and Athens, but will not uproot it. A godless edu- 
cation has no power to purify. Instruction in morality 
also has failed to regenerate. No man does his duty simply 
because he knows it unless he loves it; nor are political and 
social changes effective. Social evil has its root in the 
individual heart, and cannot be removed except by influ- 
ences operating within it. This fountain of man's corrup- 
tion must be purified to corrupt social vice. — Prof. Seelye. 



STATESMEN. 

There is a book worth all other books which were ever 
printed. — Patrick Henry. 

The Bible is the best book in the world. — John Adams, 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 87 

So great is mj veneration for the Bible, that the earlier 
my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my 
hopes that thej will prove useful citizens to their country, 
and respectable members of society. — Joh7i Quincy Ad- 
ams. 

It is impossible to govern the world without God. He 
must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more 
than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge 
his obligation. — General George Washington. 

Pointing to the family Bible on the stand, during his last 
illness, Andrew Jackson said to his friend ; " That book, sir, 
is the rock on which our republic rests." 

I DEEM the present occasion sufficiently important and 
solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a 
profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough 
• conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just 
sense of religious responsibility, are essentially connected 
with all true and lasting happiness. — General Harrison^s 
Inaugural Address. 

As to Jesus of ITazareth, my opinion of whom you par- 
ticularly desire, I think the system of morals, and His relig- 
ion, as He left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or 
is likely to see. — Benjamin Franklin. 

Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any other man, 
can unchristianize the mass of our citizens? Or have you 
hopes of corrupting a few of them to assist you in so bad a 
cause? — Samuel Adams'' Letter to Thomas Paine. 

Chr.stianity is the onlj^ true and perfect religion, and that 
in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its 
precepts, they will be wise and happy. And a better knowl- 
edge of this religion is to be acquired by reading the Bible 
than in any other way. — Benjamin Rush. 



S8 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

When that illustrious man, Chief Justice Joy, was dying, 
he was asked if he had any farewell address to leave his 
children; he replied, "They have the Bible." 

I ALWAYS have had, and always shall have, a profound re- 
gard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its 
rites, its usages, and observances. — Henry Clay. 

A FEW days before his death, " the foremost man of all 
his times," drew up and signed this declaration of his relig- 
ious faith: " Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 
Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the 
vastness of the universe, in comparison with the insignifi- 
cance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for 
the faith that is in me, but my heart has always assured 
and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a 
divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a 
merely human production. This belief enters into the very 
depth of my conscience." — Daniel Webster, 

" Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liber- 
erties; write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them 
in your lives. To the influence of this book we are indebted 
for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we 
must look as our guide in the future. — Z7. S. Grant. 

Philosophy has sometimes forgotten God ; as great people 
never did. The skepticism of the last century could not 
uproot Christianity, because it lived in the hearts of the 
millions. Do you think that infidelity is spreading? Chris- 
tianity never lived in the hearts of so many millions as at 
this moment. The forms under which it is professed may 
decay, for they, like all that is the work of man's hands, are 
subject to the changes and chances of mortal being; but the 
spirit of truth is incorruptible; it may be developed, illus- 
trated and applied; it can never die; it never can decline. 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 89 

IS^o truth can perish. JSTo truth can pass away. The flame 
is undying, though generations disappear. Wherever mor- 
tal truth has started into being humanity claims and guards 
the bequest. Each generation gathers together the imper- 
ishable children of the past, and increases them by the new 
sons of the light, alike radiant with immortality. — £an- 

CTOft, 



GEEAT THINKERS. 

It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the 
guide of my moral and literary life. — Goethe. 

I ACCOUNT the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime 
philosophy. — Sir Isaac Newton. 

To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I 
should need to send him to no other book than the IS^ew 
Testament. — JoJin Locke. 

I KNOW the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at 
greater depths of my being than any other book. — Cole- 
ridge. 

A NOBLE book! All men's book. It is our first state- 
ment of the never-ending problem of man's destiny and 
God's way with men on earth. — Carlyle. 

I MUST confess the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me 
with astonishment. — Rousseau. 

. " There is not a boy nor a girl, all Christendom through, 
but their lot is made better by this great book. — Theodore 
Parker, 

Take the gospel away, and what a mockery is human 
philosophy! I once met a thoughtful scholar who told me 



90 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

that for years he had read every book which assailed the 
religion of Jesus Christ. He said that he should have 
become an infidel if it had not been for three things: 

" First, I am a man. I am going somewhere. I am to- 
night a day nearer the grave than last night. I have read 
all that they can tell me. There is not one solitary ray of 
light upon the darkness. They shall not take away the 
only guide and leave me stone blind. 

" Secondly, I had a mother. I saw her go down into the 
dark valley where I am going, and she leaned upon an un- 
seen arm as calmly as a child goes to sleep upon the breast 
of a mother. I know that was not a dream. 

" Thirdly," he said with tears in his eyes, " I have three 
motherless daughters. They have no protector but myself. 
I would rather kill them than leave them in this sinful 
world if you could blot out from it all the teachings of the 
Gospel." — Bishojp Whijpjple. 

When Daniel Webster was in his best moral state, and 
when he was in the prime of his manhood, he was one day 
dining with a company of literary gentlemen in the city of 
Boston. The company was composed of clergymen, law- 
yers, physicians, statesmen, merchants, and almost all 
classes of literary persons. During the dinner conversa- 
tion incidentally turned upon the subject of Christianity. 
Mr. Webster, as the occasion was in honor of him, was 
expected to take a leading part in the conversation, and he 
frankly stated as his religious sentiments his belief in the 
divinity of Christ, and his dependence upon the atonement 
of the Savior. A minister of very considerable literary 
reputation sat almost opposite him at the table, and he 
looked at him and said: " Mr. Webster, can you compre- 
hend how Jesus Christ could be both God and man? " Mr. 
Webster, with one of those looks which no man can imitate, 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 91 

fixed his eyes upon him, and promptly and emphatically 
said: "IS'o, sir, I cannot comprehend it; and I would be 
ashamed to acknowledge him as my Savior if 1 could com- 
prehend it. If I could comprehend him, he could be no 
greater than myself, and such is my conviction of accounta- 
bility to God, such is my sense of sinfulness before him, 
and such is my knowledge of my own incapacity to recover 
myself, that I feel 1 need a superhuman Savior." — Bishop 
Janes, 

What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare 
fabric of ELeaven and earth could come by chance, when all 
the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? — Jeremy 
Taylor, 

It would not be worth while to live if we were to die 
entirely. That which alleviates labor and sanctifies toil is 
to have before us the vision of a better world through the 
darkness of this life. That world is to me more real than 
the chimera which we devour, and which we call life. It is 
forever before my eyes. It is the supreme certainty of my 
reason, as it is the supreme consolation of my soul. — Yic- 
tor Hugo. 

Once, had I been called upon to create the earth, I should 
have done as the many would now. I should have laid it out 
in pleasure-grounds, and given man Milton's occupation of 
tending flowers. But I am now satisfied with this wild 
earth, its awful mountains and depths, steeps and torrents. 
I am not sorry to learn that God's end is a virtue far 
higher than I should have prescribed. — Charming. 

To do good to men is the great work of life; to make 
them true Christians is the greatest good we can do them. 
Every investigation brings us round to this point. Begin 



92 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

here and you are like one who strikes water from a rock on 
the summit of the mountains; it flows down all the inter- 
vening tracts to the very base. If we could make each 
man love his neighbor, we should make a happy world. 
The true method is to begin with ourselves and so extend 
the circle around us. It should be perpetually in our 
minds. — «/. W. Alexander. 

From philosophy, from poetry and from art, is heard the 
acknowledgment that there is no repose for the rational 
spirit but in moral truth. The testimony that the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain, together, is as 
loud and convincing from the domain of letters, as it is 
from the cursed and thistle-bearing ground. From the 
immortal longing and dissatisfaction of Plato, down to the 
wild and passionate restlessness of Byron and Shelley, the 
evidence is decisive that a spiritual and religious element 
must enter into the education of man in order to inward 
harmony and rest. — Dr. jShedd. 

" The mother of a family was married to an infidel, who 
made a jest of religion in the presence of his own children; 
yet she succeeded in bringing them all up in the fear of 
the Lord. I one day asked her how she preserved them 
from the influence of a father whose sentiments were so 
openly opposed to her own. This was her answer: * Because 
to the authority of a father I did not oppose the authority 
of a mother, but that of God. From their earliest years my 
children have always seen the Bible upon my table. This 
holy book has constituted the whole of their religious 
instruction. I was silent that I might allow it to speak. 
Did they propose a question, did they commit any fault, 
did they perform any good action, I opened the Bible, and 
the Bible answered, reproved or encouraged them. The 






WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 93 

constant reading of the Scriptures has alone wrought the 
prodigy which surprises jou.' " — Adolphe Monod. 

I PREACHED on Suudaj in the parlors at Long Branch. 
The war was over, and Admiral Farragut and his family 
were spending the summer at the Branch. Sitting on the 
portico of the hotel Monday morning, he said to me,. 
" Would you like to know how I was enabled to serve my 
country? It was all owing to a resolution I formed when 
I was ten years of age. My father was sent down to New 
Orleans with the little navy we then had, to look after the 
treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin-boy. I had 
some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could 
swear like an old salt; could drink a stiff glass of grog as 
if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a loco- 
motive. I was great at cards and fond of gaming in every 
shape. At the close of the dinner one day, my father 
turned every body out of the cabin, locked the door, and 
said to me: 

" ' David, what do you mean to be? ' 

" * I mean to follow the sea.' 

" ' Follow the sea! Yes, be a poor, miserable drunken 
sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world^ 
and die in some fever hospital, in a foreign clime.' 

" ' IN'o,' I said, ' I'll tread the quarter-deck and command 
as you do.' 

"'iN^o, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with 
such principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. 
You'll have to change your whole course of life if you ever 
become a man.' 

'' My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned 
by the rebuke and overwhelmed with mortification. ' A 
poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and 
cuffed about the world, and to die in some fever hospital I 



94 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

That's my fate, is it? I'll change my life, and change it at 
once. I will never utter another oath, I will never drink 
another drop of intoxicating liqnors, I will never gamble.' 
And, as God is my witness, I have kept those three vows 
to this hour. Shortly after, I became a Christian. That 
act settled my temporal, as it settled my eternal destiny." 
— Anon. 

A Bible well worn in that part which contains the Ser- 
mon on the Mount is the book which our age most needs. 
There the Will of the Father, those laws which save souls 
or damn them lie in perfect plainness. JSTo commentary 
can throw light upon them, no science or learning can take 
their light away. They are a part of the universe, only 
more imperishable than the stars. Christ died for man be- 
cause man would not respect these laws of the kingdom. 
Having died for sinners, He now invites them to come into 
these laws of the Father. Do not mistake the invitation. — 
David Swing. 

You never can get at the literal limitation of living facts. 
They disguise themselves by the very strength of their life; 
get told again and again in different ways by all manner of 
people; the literalness of them is turned topsy-turvy, inside 
out, over and over again; then the fools come and read them 
wrong side upwards, or else say there never was a fact at all. 
ISTothing delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a neg- 
ative, — to show that everybody has been wrong. Fancy the 
delicious sehsation to an empty-headed creature of fancying 
for a moment that he has emptied everybody else's head as 
well as his own ! nay, that for once, his own hollow bottle 
of a head has had the best of other bottles, and has been^r-^^ 
empty, — first to know nothing. — Huskin. 

It is not so wretched to be blind as it is not to be capable 
of enduring blindness. Let me be the most feeble creature 



WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 95 

alive as long as that feebleness serves to invigorate the en- 
ergies of mj rational and immortal spirit; so long as in that 
obscurity in which I am enveloped the light of the divine 
presence more clearly shines; and indeed, in my blindness 
I enjoy in no inconsiderable degree the favor of the Deity, 
who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in 
proportion as I am able to behold nothing but Himself. 
For the divine law not only shields me from injury, but al- 
most renders me too sacred to attack, as from the overshad- 
owing of those heavenly wings which seem to have occasioned 
this obscurity. — Milton. 

A PEiisrcB said to Rabbi Gamaliel: "Your God is a 
thief; he surprised Adam in his sleep, and stole a rib from 
him." The Rabbi's daughter overheard this speech, and 
whispered a word or two in her father's ear, asking his 
permission to answer this singular opinion herself. He 
gave his consent. The girl stepped forward, and feigning 
terror and dismay, threw her arms aloft in supplication, and 
cried out, " My liege, my liege, justice! revenge! " " What 
has happened ? " asked the prince. " A wicked theft has 
taken place," she replied. " A robber has crept secretly 
into our house, carried away a silver goblet, and left a 
golden one in its stead." " What an upright thief ! " 
exclaimed the prince. " Would that such robberies were 
of more frequent occurrence!" "Behold, then, sir, the 
kind of thief our Creator was; he stole a rib from Adam, 
and gave him a beautiful wife instead." "Well said!" 
avowed the prince. — Talmud Sanhedrim. 

Once there was a Judge who had a colored man. The 
colored man was very godly, and the Judge used to have 
him to drive him around in his circuit. The Judge used 
often to talk with him, and the colored man would tell the 
Judge about his religious experience, and about his battles^ 



96 MISTAKES OF INGEESOLL. 

and conflicts. One day the Judge said to him : " Sambo, 
how is it that yon Christians are always talking about the 
conflicts you have with Satan? I am better off than yon 
are. I don't have any troubles or conflicts, and yet I am an 
infidel and you are a Christian — always in a muss; — how's 
that. Sambo ?" This floored the colored man for awhile. He 
did n't know how to meet the old infidel's argument. So he 
shook his head sorrowfully and said: "I dunno, Massa, I 
dunno." The Judge always carried a gun along with him 
for hunting. Pretty soon they came to a lot of ducks. The 
Judge took his gun and blazed away at them, and wounded 
one and killed another. The Judge said quickly: ''You 
jump in, Sambo, and get that wounded duck before he gets 
ofi"," and did not pay any attention to the dead one. In 
went Sambo for the wounded duck, and came out reflecting. 
The colored man then thought he had an illustration. He 
said to the Judge: "Ihab 'im now, Massa; I'se able to 
show you how de Christian hab greater conflict dan de infl- 
del. Do n't you know de moment you wounded dat ar duck, 
how anxious you was to get 'im out, and you did n't care for 
de dead, but jus' lef ' him alone? " " Yes," said the Judge. 
"Well," said Sambo, "ye see as how dat are dead duck's a 
sure thing. I 'se wounded, and I tries to get away from the 
debbil. It takes trouble to cotchme. But, Massa, you are 
a dead duck — dar's no squabble for you; de debbil have you 
sure ! " So the devil has no conflict with the infidel. — J). 
L. Moody, 



"MISTAKES OF MOSES." 97 



INGERSOLUS LECTURE 



ON 
ii 



The Mistakes of Moses." 



Now and then some one asks me why I am endeavoring to interfere 
with the religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world 
the consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. And I an- 
swer, I want to do what little I can to make my country tinaly free. I 
want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people I want it so that 
we can differ upon all those questions, and yet grasp each other's hands 
in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free the clergy. I am 
a great friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have found it out gener- 
ally. I want it so that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sit- 
ting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that 
have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each 
one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his congregation 
grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will de- 
mand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his 
thought. As it is now, minister.? are employed like attorneys — -for the 
plaintiff or the defendant. If a few people know of a young man in the 
neighborhood maybe who has not a good constitution — he may not be 
healthy enough to be wicked — a young man who has shown no decided 
talent — it occurs to them to make him a minister. They contribute and 
send him to some school. If it turns out that that young man has more of 
the man in him than they thought, and he changes his opinion, every 
one who contributed will feel himself individually swindled — and they 
will follow that young man to the grave with the poisoned shafts of mal- 
ice and slander. I want it so that every one will be free — so that a pulpit will 
not be a pillory. They have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, 
7. 



98 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

a kind of minister- factory; and every professor in that factory takes an 
oath once in every five years — that is as long as an oath will last — that 
not only has he not during the last five years, but so help him God, he 
will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably 
there is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that insti- 
tution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the same 
creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when 
they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from Shefiield and 
Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated knows 
his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he re.ids, 
and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and 
shrivel, and become solemnly stupid day after day until he meets with 
death. It is all wrong; it is cruel. Those men should be allowed to 
grow. They should have the air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. 

I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a 
professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will not 
hide the fact, that it will not be the worse for him for having discovered 
the fact. I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church 
and schools. The common school is the bread of life; but there should 
be nothing taught in the schools except what somebody knows; and any- 
thing else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation. I 
want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; that they 
will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be trammeled 
by the superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with facts ? 
Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyter- 
ian botany. Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has any form 
of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science ? Nothing 
but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to free the schools; 
and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend 
he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic; 
so that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will 
find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. 

I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to 
make laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has 
brains enough to prophesy the destiny of the American Republic, no 
matter what his opinions may be upon any religious subject. Suppose 
we are in a storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, 
and it is necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man pre- 
sents himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out 
his opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with 
it? Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, 
and from what httle experience I have had of Washington, very little to 



''MISTAKES OF MOSESr 99 

do with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this 
magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or 
Methodists, and remember that they are men and women. These are the 
highest titles humanity can bear — man and woman; and every title you 
add belittles them. Man is the highest; woman is the highest. Let us 
remember that we are simply human beings, with interests in common. 
And let us remember that our "^dews depend largely upon the country in 
which we happen to live. Suppose we were born in Turkey most of us 
would have been Mohammedans; and when we read in the book that 
when Mohammed visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel 
named Gabriel, who was so broad between his eyes that it would take a 
smart camel three hundred days to make the journey, we probabiy would 
have believed it. If we did not, people would say: " That young man 
is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the fabric of our religion. What 
do you propose to give us instead of that angel? We cannot afford to 
trade off an angel of that size for nothing." Or if we had been born in 
India, we would have believed in a god with three heads. Now we be- 
lieve in three gods with one head. And so we might make a tour of the 
world and see that every superstition that could be imagined by the brain 
of man has been in some place held to be sacred. 

Now some one says, "The religion of my father and mother is good 
enough forme." Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress 
of the world? We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion — 
religion which no one could believe. I do not believe that it is showing 
real respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did. 
Every good father and every good mother wish their children to find out 
more than they knew; every good father wants his son to overcome some 
obstacle that he could not grapple with; and if you wish to reflect credit 
on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did, 
because you live in abetter time. Every nation has had what you call a 
sacred record, and the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and , 
the more inspired is the record. We, of course, are not an exception, and 
I propose to talk a little aboat what is called the Pentateuch, a book, or 
a collection of books, said to have been written by Moses. And right 
here in the commencement let me say that Moses never wrote one word 
of the Pentateuch — not one word was written until he had been dust and 
ashes for hundreds of years. But as the general opinion is that Moses 
wrote these books, I have entitled this lecture the "The Mistakes of 
Moses," For the sake of this lecture, we will admit that he wrote it. 
Nearly every maker of religion has commenced by making the world; 
and it is one of the safest things to do, because no one can contradict as 
having been present, and it gives free scope to the imagination. These 



100 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

books, in times when there was a vast difference between the educated 
and the ignorant, became inspired and people bowed down and wor- 
shipped them. 

I saw a little while ago a Bible with immense oaken covers, with 
hasps and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine 
how that book would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more 
than one person in a dozen could read and write. In imagination I saw 
it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the swing- 
ing of the censer and the smoke rising; and when that Bible was put on 
the altar 1 can imagine the barbarians looking at it and wondering what 
influence that black book could have on their lives and future. I do not 
wonder that they imagined it was inspired. None of them could write a 
book, and consequently when they saw it they adored it; they were 
stricken with awe; and rascals took advantage of that awe. 

Now they say that the book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or 
not; the question is: Is it true? If it is true it don't need to be inspired. 
Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never 
went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of won- 
ders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you 
can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except 
another lie made for the express purpose; and, finally, some one gets tired 
of lying, and the last lie will not fit the next fact, and then there is a. 
chance for inspiration. Right then and there a miracle is needed. The 
real question is : In the light of science, in the light of the brain and 
heart of the nineteenth century, is this book true? The gentlemen who 
wrote it begins by telling us that God made the universe out of nothing. 
That I cannot conceive ; it may be so, but I cannot conceive it. Nothings 
regarded in the light of raw material, is, to my mind, a decided and dis- 
astrous ftiilure. I cannot imagine of nothing being made into somethings 
any more than I can of something being changed back into nothing. ] 
cannot conceive of force aside from matter, because force to be force must 
.be active, and unless there is matter there is nothing for force to actupon» 
and consequently it cannot be active. So I simply say 1 cannot compre- 
hend it. I cannot beileve it. I may roast for this, but it is my honest 
opinion. The next thing he proceeds to tell us is that God divided the 
darkness from the light; and right here let me say when I speak about 
God I simply mean the being described by the Jews. There may be 
in immensity some being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose 
every thought is a glittering star, but I know nothing about Him, — not 
the sligi.tesfc, — and this afternoon I am simply talking about the being 
described by the Jewish people. When I say God, I mean Him. Mose& 
describes God dividing the light from the darkness. I suppose that at 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES r 101 

that time they must have been mixed. You can readily see how light and 
darkness can get mixed. They must have been entities. The reason I 
think so is because in that same book I find that darkness overspread 
Egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used to have on exhibition 
in Rome a bottle of the darkness that once overspread Egypt. The gen- 
tleman who wrote this in imagination saw God dividing light from the 
darkness. I am sure the man who wrote it, believed darkness to be an 
entity, a something, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light. 

The next thing that he informs us is that God di"\dded the waters above 
the firmanent from those below the firmanent. The man who wrote that 
believed the firmanent to be a solid affair. And that is what the gods 
did. You recollect the gods came down and made love to the daughters 
of men — and I never blamed them for it. I have never read a description 
of any heaven I would not leave on the same errand. That is where the 
gods lived. That is where they kept the water. It was solid. That is 
the reason the people prayed for rain. They believed that an angel could 
take a lever, raise a widow and let out the desired quantity. I find in the 
Psalms that " He bowed the heavens and came down;" and we read that 
the children of men built a tower to reach the heavens and climb into the 
abode of the gods. The man who wrote that believed the firmanent to 
be solid. He knew nothing about the laws of evaporation. He did not 
know that the sun wooed with amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and 
that, disappointed, their vaporous sighs changed to tears and fell again 
as rain. The next thing he tells us is that the grass began to grow, and 
the branches of the trees laughed into blossom, and the grass ran up the 
shoiflder of the hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light had left the 
eternal quiver of the sun. Not a blade of grass had ever been touched 
by a gleam of light. And I do not think that grass will grow to 
hurt without a gleam of sunshine. I think the man who wrote that 
simply made a mistake, and is excusable to a certain degree The next 
-day he made the sun and moon — the sun to rule the day and the moon to 
rule the night. Do you think the man who wrote that knew anything 
about the size of the sun ? I think he thought it was about three feet in 
diameter, because I find in some book that the sun was stopped a whole 
day, to give a general named Joshua time to kill a few more Amalekites; 
and the moon was stopped also. Now it seems to me that the sun would 
give light enough without stopping the moon; but as they were in the 
stopping business they did it just for devilment. At another time, we 
read, the sun was turned ten degrees backward to convince Hezekiah 
that he was not going to die of a boil. How much easier it would have 
been to cure the boil. The man who wrote that thought the sun was two 
or three feet in diameter, and could be stopped and pulled around like the 



102 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

sun and moon in a theatre. Do you know that the sun throws out every 
second of time as much heat as could be generated by burning- eleven 
thousand millions tons of coal? I don't believe he knew that, or that he 
knew the motion of the earth. I don't believe he knew that it was turn- 
ing on its axis at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did, 
he would have understood the immensity of heat that would have been 
generated by stopping the world. It has been calculated by one of the 
best mathematicians and astronomers that to stop the world would cause 
as mucii heat as it would take to burn a lump of solid coal three times as 
big as the globe. And yet we find in that book that the sun was not only 
stopped, but turned back ten degrees, simply to convince a gentleman 
that he was not going to die of a boil. They may say I will be damned 
if I do not believe that, and I tell them I will if I do. 

Then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in five 
words: "He made the stars also." He^ame very near forgetting the 
stars. Do you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are 
stars as much larger than this earth as this earth is larger than the apple 
which Adam and Eve are said to have eaten? Do you believe that he 
knew that this world is but a speck in the shining, glittering universe of 
existence ? I would gather from that that he made the stars after he got 
the world done. The telescope, in reading the infinite leaves of the 
heavens, has ascertained that light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles 
per second, and it would require millions of years to come from some of 
the stars to this earth. Yet the beams of those stars mingle in our 
atmosphere, so that if those distant orbs were fashioned when this world 
began, we must have been whirling in space not six thousand, but many 
millions of years. Do you believe the man who wrote that as a history 
of astronomy really knew that this world was but a speck compared with 
millions of sparkling orbs? I do not. He then proceeds to tell us ihat 
God made fish and cattle, and that man and woman were created male 
and female. The first account stops at the second versQ of the second 
chapter. You see, the Bible originally was not divided into chapters; 
the first Bible that was ever divided into chapters in our language was- 
made in the year of grace 1550. The Bible was originally written in the 
Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language at that time had no vowels 
in writing. It was written entirely with consonants, and without being 
divided into chapters or into verses, and there was no system of punctu- 
ation whatever. After you go home to-night write an English sen ence 
or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will 
take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it. When the 
Bible was divided into verses and chapters, the divisions were not always 
correct, and so the division between the first andsecond chapter of Gen- 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES.'' 103 

esis is not in the right place. The second account of the creation com- 
mences at the third verse, and it differs from the first in two essential 
points. In the first account man is the last made; in the second, man is 
made before the beasts. In the first account, man is made "male and 
female; " in the second only a man is made, and there is no intention of 
making a woman whatever. 

You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm 
off on Adam a beast as his helpmeet. Everybody talks about the Bible 
and nobody reads it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. I am 
probably the only man in the United States who has read the Bible 
through this year. I have wasted that time, but I had a purpose in 
view. Just read it, and you will find, about the twenty-third verse, that 
God caused all the animals to walk before Adam in order that he might 
name them. And the animals came like a menagerie into town, and as 
Adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers and creepers, this God stood by 
to see what he would call them. After this procession passed, it was 
pathetically remarked, "Yet was there not found any helpmeet for 
Adam." Adam didn't see anything that he could fancy. And I am glad 
he didn't. If he had, there would not have been a free-thinker in this 
world; we should have all died orthodox. And finding Adam was so par- 
ticular, God had to make him a helpmeet, and having used up the nothing 
he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman with, and 
he took from the man a rib. How did he get it? And then imagine a 
God with a bone in his hand, and about to start a woman, trying to make 
up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette. 

Right here it is only proper that I should warn you of the consequences 
of laughing at an.7 story in the holy Bible. When you come to die, your 
laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look back 
upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked 
and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and 
deserted — all that may be forgiven you; but if you recollect that you have 
laughed at God's book you will see through the shadows of death, 
the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Let me show 
you how it will be: For instance, it is the day of judgment. When the 
man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross- 
examining, he says to his soul: " Where are you from?" " I am from 
the world." "Yes, sir. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I 
don't like to talk about myself." " Bat you have to. What kind of a 
man were you? " " Well, 1 was a good fellow; I loved my wife, I loved 
my children. -My home was my heaven; my fireside was my paradise, 
and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of 
those I love, that to me was a perpetual joy. I never gave one of them a 



104 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

solitary moment of pain, I don't owe a dollar in the world, and I left 
enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the 
door of the house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." " Did you 
belong to any church?" "I did not. They were too narrow forme. 
They were always expecting" to be happy simply because somebody else 
was to be damned." " Well, did you believe that rib story?" " What rib- 
story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? No, I did not. To 
tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow." 
"To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?" " Pm from the 
world, too." "Do you belong to any church?" "Yes," sir, and to the 
Young Men's Christian Association." "What is your business?" 
" Cashier in a bank." " Did you ever run off with any of the money?" 
" I don't like to tell, su-." "Well, but you have to." "Yes, sii- I did." 
"What kind of a bank did you have?" " A savings bank." "How 
much did you run off with?" " One hundred thousand dollars." " Did 
you take anything else along with you?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "I 
took my neighbor's wife." " Did you have a wife and children of your 
own?" "Yes, sir." " And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes; bu such 
was my confidence in God that T believed he would take care of them." 
" Have you heard of them since?" " No, sir." " Did you believe that 
rib story?" "Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believe all of it, sir; I often 
used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible, so that 
I could show what my faith could do." " You believed it, did you?" 
"Yes, with all my heart." "Give him a harp." 

I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these sto- 
ries. Of all the authors in the world God hates a critic the worst. Hav- 
ing got this woman done he brought her to the man, and they started 
housekeeping, and a few minutes afterward a snake came through a crack 
in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit. She 
was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know whether 
snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the apples or 
not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples 
and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was made. 
God ought to have rubbed him out once. He might have known that no 
good could come of starting the world with a man like that. They were 
turned out. Then the trouble commenced, and people got worse and 
worse. God, you must recollect, was holding the reins of government, 
but he did nothing for them. He allowed them to live six hundred and 
sixty-nine years without knowing their A. B. C He never started a 
school, not even a Sunday school. He didn't even keep His own boys at 
home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to 
drown them. Yet that same god has the impudence to tell me how to 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES.'' 105 

raise my own children. What would you think of a neighbor, who had just 
killed his babes giving you his views on domestic economy ? God found 
that he could do nothing with them and He said : "I will drown them 
all, except a few." And He picked out a fellow by the name of Noah, 
that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. If I had to drown any- 
body, I would have drowned him. I believe that Noah had then been 
married something like one hundred years. God told him to build a boat, 
and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet broad and 
fifty-five feet high, with one door shutting on the outside, and one win- 
dow twenty-two inches square. If Noah had any hobby in the world it 
was vetilation. Then into this ark he put a certain number of all the 
animals in the world. Naturalists have ascertained that at that time 
there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects necessary to go into 
the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred reptilia, to say 
nothing about the mastodon, the elephant and the animalculaB, of which 
thousands live upon a single leaf and which cannot be seen by the naked 
'eye. Noah had no microscope, and yet he had to pick them out by pairs. 
You have no idea the trouble that man had. Some say that the flood 
was not universal, that it was partial. Why then did God s^y: " I will 
destroy every living thing beneath the 'heavens." If it was partial why 
did Noah save the birds? An ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, 
can beat a partial flood. Why did he put the birds in there — the eagles, the 
vultures, the condors — if it was only a partial flood? And how did he 
get them in there? Were they inspired to go there, or did he diive them 
Tip ? Did the polar bear leave his home of ice and start for the tropics 
inquiring for Noah; or could the kangaroo come from Australia unless 
he was inspired, or somebody was behind him? Then there are animals 
•on this hemisphere not on that. How did he get them across? And 
there are some animals which would be very unpleasant in an ark unless 
the ventilation was very perfect. 

When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah 
pulled down the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on 
raining until the water went twenty- nine feet over the highest mountain. 
Chimborazo, then as now, lifted its head above the clouds, and then as 
now, there sat the condor. And yet the waters rose and rose over every 
mountain in the world — twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks, cov- 
ered with snow and ice. How dee :) were these waters ? About five and 
a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it 
have to rain a day? About eight hundred feet. How is that for damp- 
ness ? No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I 
had been there I would have said the waole side of the house was out. How 
long were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with 



106 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

no rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, 
and there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. Who 
ran this ark — who took care of it ? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, 
a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about 
three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the ani- 
mals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got 
a breath of fresh air, and he let out all the animals; and then Noah took 
a drink, and God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us 
any more, and He put a rainbow in the clouds and said: " When I see 
that I will recollect that I have promised not to drown you." Because 
if it was not lor that He is apt to drown us at any moment. Now can 
anybody believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? Are you not 
all familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches- 
before our eyes ? Then the people started out again, and they were as 
bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first 
place ? He knew he would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his 
family. Then another thing, why did He want to drown the animals ? 
What had they done ? What crime had they committed ? It is very 
hard to answer these questions — that is, for a man who has only been- 
born once. After a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, 
and the gods heard about it and said: "Let's go down and see what man 
is up to." They came, and found things a great deal worse than they 
thought, and thereupon they confounded the language to prevent them 
succeeding, so that the fellow up above could not shout down "mortar " 
or " brick " to the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible 
that any one believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of 
languages in the world? Do you know that hmguage is born of human 
experience, and is a physical science? Do you know that every wordha& 
been suggested in someway by the feelings or observations of man — that- 
there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others- 
as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and beings 
born continually — that every language has its cemetery and cradle, its 
bud and blossom, and withered leaf? Man has loved, enjoyed and suf- 
fered, and language is simply the expression he gives those experiences. 
Then the world began to divide, and the Jewish nation was started. 
Now I want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were bar- 
barians. If the Jewish people had to write these books now they would be 
civilized books, and I do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors- 
did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and there were seventy 
of them, counting Joseph and his children already in Egypt. They lived 
two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into Egypt and 
stayed there two hundred and fifteen years; they were four hundred and 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES." 107 

thirty years in Canaan and Egypt. How many did they have when 
they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the end 
of two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good 
many. We had at the time of the Revolution in this country three mil- 
lions of people. Since that time there have been four doubles, until we- 
have forty-eight millions to-day. How many would the Jews number at 
the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? Call it eight doubles- 
and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousand they had 
three millions. How do I know they had three millions? Because they 
had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in the 
State of Illinois there will be five other people, and there are always more- 
voters than men of war. They must have had at the lowest possible esti- 
mate three millions of people. Is that true? Is there a minister in the 
city of Chicago that will certify to his own idiocy by claiming that they 
could have increased to three millions by that time? If there is, let him 
say so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a lie. 

When they got into the desert they took a census to see how many first- 
born children there were. They found they had twenty-two thousand 
two hundred and seventy-three first born males. It is reasonable to sup- 
po e there was about the same number of first born girls, or forty-five- 
thousand first born c ildren. There must have been about as many- 
mothers as first-born children. Dividing three millions by forty-five- 
thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel had to have- 
on the average sixty-eight children apiece. Some stories are too thin. 
This is too thick. Now, we know that among three milHon people there- 
will be about three hundred births a day; and according to the Old Testa- 
ment, whenever a child was born the mot.ier had to make a sacrifice — sl 
sin- offering for the crime of having been a mother. If there s in this uni- 
verse anything that is infinitely pure, it is a mother with her child in her 
arms. Every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of doves, a couple- 
of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place. 
At that time there were at least three hundred births a day, and the priests, 
had to cook and eat those pigeons in the most holy place; and at that 
time there were only three priests. Two hundred birds apiece per day!- 
I look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. 

Then where were these Jews? They were upon the desert of Sinai;, 
and Sahara compared to that is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn 
by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and 
changed to stone. Such was the desert of Sinai. The whole supplies of 
the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of 
Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand milUons of 
dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there they were- 



108 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

ivith flocks and herds — so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and 
iSfty thousand first-born lambs at one time. It would require millions of 
:acres to support those flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and 
there is no account of it rainmg- baled hay. They sacrificed one hundred 
and fifty thousand lambs, and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the 
altar within two hours, and there were only three priests. They would 
have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. 
Then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. 
Three millions of people would make a column six miles long. Some 
reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. Well, that would 
make a column of over a mile. 

Where were these people going? They were going to the Holy Land. 
How large was it? Twelve thousand square miles — one-fifth the size of 
Illinois — a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There 
never was a land agent in the city of Chicago that would not have blushed 
with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey. 
Do you believe that God Almighty ever went into partnership with 
liornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews: " I will 
send hornets before you, to drive out the Canaanites." How would a 
hornet know a Canaanite ? Is it possible that God inspired the hornets 
- — that he granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? I am 
willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better calculated to 
make a man leave his native country than a few hornets attending 
.strictly to business. God said "Kill the Canaanites slowly.'* Why? 
" Lest the beasts of the field increase upon you." How many Jews were 
there? Three millions. Going to a country, how large ? Twelve thou- 
sand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy Land ? 
Yes, there were seven nations "mightier than the Jews." Sa}'' there 
would be twenty-onemillions when they got there, or twenty- four millions 
with themselves. Yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts 
•of the field increase upon them. Is there a man in Chicago that believes 
that! Then what does he teach it to Httle children for? Let him tell 
the truth. 

So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children 
•of Israel lived on manna — one account says all the time, and another only 
a little while. That is the reason there is a chance for commentaries, 
and you can exercise faith. If the book was reasonable everybody could 
get to heaven in a moment. But whenever it looks as if it could not be 
that way and you believe, you are almost a saint, and when you know it 
is not that way and believe you are a saint. He fed them on manna. 
Now manna is very peculiar stuff". It would melt in the sun, and yet 
ihey used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES." 109" 

frying snow or boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar qual- 
ities. It shrank to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and 
swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a 
magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and swel- 
ling according to the volume of business! There was not a change in the- 
bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God could just as well give 
them three square meals a day. They remembered about the cucumbers, 
and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of Egypt, and they said: 
" Our souls abhoreth this light bread." Then this God got mad — you. 
know cooks are always touchy — and thereupon He sent snakes to bite 
the men, women and children. He also sent them quails in wrath and 
auger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, He struck 
thousands of them dead. He always acted in that way, all of a sudden. 
People had no chance to explain — no chance to move for a new trial — 
nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable he should kill people for- 
asking for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you had been 
boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary 
thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said : "My soul abhor- 
eth hash. " What would you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes 
upon you? Now is it possible for people to believe this? The Bible 
says that their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at the 
knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. They grew right 
along with them. The little boy starting out with his first pants grew 
up and his pants grew with him. Some commentators have insisted that 
angels attended to their wardrobes. I never could believe it. Just think 
of one angel hunting another and saying; " There goes another button." 
I cannot believe it. 

There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe 
the real God — if there is one — ever killed a man for making hair-oil ?" 
And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for 
making hair-oil to grease Aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the 
same hair- oil he should be killed. And He gave him a formula for 
making ointment, and He said if anybody made ointment like that he 
should be killed. I think that is carrying patent-laws to excess. There 
must be some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite Creator 
of all the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair-oil. Do you believa 
that the real God came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for 
making a tabernacle — patterns for tongs, for snuffers, and such things? 
Do you believe that God came down on that mountain and told Moses- 
how to cut a coat, and how it should be trimmed? What would an infi- 
nite God care on which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, 
or how the buttons were placed ? Do you believe God told Moses to 



110 . _ MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

make curtains of fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the des- 
ert? How did they weave it? Did He tell him to make things of gold, 
silver and precious stones, when they hadn't them? Is it possible that 
God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting 
the trees ? You see all these things were written hundreds of years after- 
wards, and the priests, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. 
They did not say, " This is our law," but, " Thus said God to Moses in 
the wilderness." Now, can you believe that? Imagine a scene : The 
-eternal God tells Moses, " Here is the way I want you to consecrate my 
priests. Catch a sheep and cut his throat." I never could understand 
•why God wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean 
trick; perhaps it was because his priests were fond of mutton. He tells 
Moses further to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a 
little on his right ear, and a little on his right big toe? Do you believe 
God ever gave such instructions for the consecration of His priests ? If 
you should see the South Sea Islanders going through such a perform- 
ance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it 
had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite 
'God? Supposing the blood got on the left toe? 

Then we find in his book how God went to work to make the Egyp- 
tians let the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with the 
mikado of Japan, and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there; and suppose 
he should employ Hermann, the wonderful German, to go along with 
him ; and when they came in the presence of the mikado Hermann threw 
down an umbrella, which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner 
said: " That is my certificate." You would say the country is disgraced. 
You would say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with 
jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, 
and when they got there Moses threw down a stick which turned into a 
snake. That God is a juggler — he is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that 
possible? Was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a snake? 
If it was the appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. Then the necroman- 
-cers of Egypt were sent for, and they threw down sticks, which turned 
into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses' snakes, which swal- 
lowed them. I maintain that it is just as hard to make small snakes as 
it is to make large ones; the only difference is that to make large snakes 
either larger sticks or more practice is required. 

Do you believe that God rained hail on the innocent cattle, killing them 
in the highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on 
cattle for something their owners had done? I could never have any 
respect for a God that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on 
-account of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked mira- 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES ^ 111 

cles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong-? Why did he not tell 
Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? Why did he 
not tell him, "Your government is founded on slavery, and it will go down, 
and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man your temples, 
your altars, and your fanes? " AVhy did he not speak about the infamy 
€f slavery? Because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. Can 
we believe that God will allow a man to give his wife the right of divorce- 
ment and make the mother of his children a wanderer and a vagrant. 
There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament except the word 
of shame and humiliation. The God of the Bible does not think woman 
is as good as man. She was never worth mentioning. It did not take 
the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. I have no respect 
for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man. And if 
there is any God in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks 
of my wife, he is not well acquainted with both of us. And yet they say 
that that was done on account of the hardness of their hearts ; and that was 
done in a community where the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to 
death for picking up sticks on Sunday. Would it not have been better 
to stone to death every man who abused his wife and allowed them to 
pick up sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts ? If God wanted 
to take those Jews from Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn't He do 
it instantly? If He was going to do a miracle, why didn't He do one 
worth talking about? 

After God had killed all the first-born in Egypt, after he had killed all 
the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hun- 
dred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the Egyptian 
army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the 
attention of thp Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts. 
Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men ? We find by the 
records of the day that the Egyptian standing army at that time was 
never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we believe all these 
stories in order to get to Heaven when we die? Must we judge of a man's 
character by the number of stories he believes ? Are we to get to Heaven 
by creed or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason, or shall we 
simply believe? Ah, but they say the Bible is not inspired about those 
little things. The Bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But 
they do not. They have a tremulous motion of the lip. But the Being 
that made them says they chew the cud. The Bible, therefore, is not 
inspired in natural history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. Well, 
what is it inspired in ? In its law ? Thousands of people say that if it 
had not been for the ten commandments we would not have known any 
better than to rob and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, 



112 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

hoed them all summer, and dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had 
sat upon the fence all the time and watched him ; do you believe it would 
be necessary for that man to read the ten commandments to find out who, 
in his judgment, had a right to take those potatoes ? All laws against 
larceny have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor. 
Why is there a law against murder? Simply because a large majority of 
people object to being murdered. That is all. And all these laws were- 
in force thousands of years before that time. 

One of the commandments said they should not make any graven 
images, and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has 
ever enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and 
any commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. 
But they say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no 
civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as you 
do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation without a 
Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with? 
Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go 
down to hell just for the lack of a Bible ? They say that it is morally in- 
spired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing, be- 
cause 1 am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this ques- 
tion — whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not; and upon that I 
am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who believes in the 
institution of polygamy ? Is there a man here who believes in that in- 
famy? You say: "No, we do not," Then you are better than your 
God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed 
in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infa- 
my of infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word 
in it. It takes the fireside away forever. It takes the meaning out of the 
words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into 
a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. I was in 
Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where God used to talk 
to Brigham Young, He never said anything to me. I said it was just as 
reasonable that God in the nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist 
in Utah as it was that four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he talked 
to Moses upon that hellish and damnable question. 

1 have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no 
heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man anf" 
the one man loves the one woman, I guess it is not inspired on the 
polygamy question. Maybe it is inspired about religious liberty. God 
says that if anybody differs with you about religion, "kill him." He 
told His peculiar people, "If any one teaches a different religion, kill 
him! " He did not say, "Try and convince him that he is wrong, " but 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES." 113 

"kill him!" He did not say, " I am in the miracle business, and I will 
convince him ; ' ' but ' ' kill him. ' ' He said to every husband, ' ' If your wife, 
that you love as you love your own soul, says, ' let us g-o and worship 
other g-ods,' then 'thy hand shall be first upon her and she shall be 
stoned with stones until she dies. ' " Well, now, I hate a God of that kind, 
and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from Him. A 
God tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on 
religion ! If the real God were to tell me to kill my wife, I would not do 
it. If you had lived in Palestine at that time, and your wife — the mother of 
your children — had woke up at night and said: " I am tired of Jehovah. 
He is always turning up that board-bill. He is always telling about 
whipping the Egyptians. He is always killing somebody. I am tired of 
Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty; 
it has covered the earth with green and flowers; by its divine light I first 
saw your face; its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful 
babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love and 
joy." Then wh at would it be your duty to do — kill her? Do you be- 
lieve any real god ever did that? Your hand should be first upon her, 
and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it against the white 
bosom filled with love for you, and saw running away the red current of 
her sweet life, then you would look up to heaven and receive the con- 
gratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you had to obey. 
I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious liberty. Let m.e ask 
you right here: Suppose, as a matter of fact, God gave those laws to the 
Jews and told them " whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill 
him," and suppose that afterwards the same God took upon himself 
flesh, and came to the world and taught and preached a different re- 
ligion, and the Jews crucified him — did he not reap exactly what he 
sowed? . 

May be this book is inspired about war. God told the IsraeKtes to 
overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending 
their native land. Kill the old men ? Yes. Kill the women ? Certainly. 
And the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and coo in the face 
of murder — dash out their brains; that is the will of God. WiU you tell 
me that any god ever commanded such infamy? Kill the men and the 
women, and the young men and the babes! "What shall we do with 
the maidens?" " Give them to the rabble murderers!" Do you believe 
that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that 
shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the 
brutal feet of lust? If there is any God, I pray him to write in the book 
of eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that I denied that lie. 
Whenever a woman reads a Bible and comes to that passage, she ought 



114 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. Do you tell me that 
any decent god would do that? What would the devil have done under 
the same circumstances'? Just think of it; and yet that is the Grod that 
we want to get into the Constitution, That is the God we teach our 
children about, so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! 
That monster — that fiend! I guess the Bible is not inspired about relig- 
ious liberty, nor about war. 

Then, if it is not inspired about these things, maybe it is inspired 
about slavery. God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen 
roundabout and they should be servants for them. What is a "ser- 
vant ? " If they struck a ' ' servant ' ' and he died immediately, punish- 
ment was to follow; but if the injured man should linger a while, there 
was no punishment, because the servant represented their money! Do 
you believe that it is right — that God made one man to work for another 
and to receive pay in rations ? Do you believe God said that a whip on 
the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed ? Is it possible 
that the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? What 
more does he say? When the time of a married slave expired, he could 
not take his wife and children with him. Then if the slave did not wish 
to desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and became his 
master's property forever. Do you believe that God ever turned the 
dimpled checks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slave- 
ry'i Do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable 
devil ? I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no lot in the 
heaven of such a God. I will go to perdition, where there is human 
sympathy. The only voice we have ever had from either of those other 
worlds came from hell. There was a rich man who prayed his brothers 
to attend to Lazarus so that they might " not come to this place." That 
is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across the river having 
any sympathy. And 1 would rather be in hell, asking for water, than in 
heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this book inspu'ed about? 
Where does the inspiration come from? Why was it that so many ani- 
mals were killed? It was simply to make atonement for man — that is all. 
They killed something that had not committed a crime, in order that the 
one who had committed the crime might be acquitted. Based upon that 
idea is the atonement of the Christian religion. That is the reason 1 
attack this book — because it is the basis of another infamy, viz : that one 
man can be good for another, or that one man can sin for another. I 
deny it. You have got to be good for yourself ; you have got to sin for 
yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong 
man. For instance, I kill some one. He is a good man. He loves hi>? 
wife and children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Chris- 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES r 116 

tian, and he goes to hell. Just as soon as I am convicted and cannot get 
a pardon I get religion, and I go to heaven. The hand of mercy cannot 
reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim. 

There is no atonement for the saint — only for the sinner and the crim- 
inal. The atonement saves the wrong man. I have said that I would 
never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine. I did not 
care what I started out on. I was always going to attack this doctrine. 
And in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the Christian 
heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest I have to say about 
Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never printed until 
1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, in 
possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did 
change it, because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in the waste bas- 
ket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear of 
memory. I want you also to know that the Jews themselves never agreed 
as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lot of books written 
that were not incorporated in the Old Testament. I want you to know 
that two or three j^ears before Christ, the Hebrew manuscript was trans- 
lated into Greek, and that the original from which the translation was 
made has never been seen since. Some Latin Bibles were found in Africa 
but no two agreed; and then they translated the Septuagint into the lan- 
guages of Europe, and no two agreed. Henry VIII. took a little time 
between murdering his wives to see that the Word of God was translated 
correctly. You must recollect that we are indebted to murderers for our 
Bibles and our creeds. Constantine, who helped on the good work in its 
early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling their blood with the 
blood of the Savior. 

The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit, and then his daughter, 
the murderess of Mary, Queen of Scotts, got up another edition, which also 
did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, King James, prepared 
the edition which we now have. There are at least one hundred thousand 
errors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not enough to 
invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are gradually being 
fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs instead of ' ' ravens, " 
and Samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred "sheaves" 
already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat. 1 
want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the 
time the Bible was composed, and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant 
in their day and generation — that they were isolated by bigotry and wick- 
edness from the rest of the world. I want you to know that there are 
fourteen hundred millions of people in the world; and that with all the 
talk and work of the societies, only one hundred and twenty millions have 



116 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

got Bibles. I want you to understand that not one person in one hundred 
in this world ever read the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike who 
did read it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. 
I want you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated 
his brother — there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the 
sword. I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with 
the sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by mur- 
derers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the church 
carried the black flag. Then talk about the civilizing influence of this 
religion ! 

Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian's heaven. 
Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to 
heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. " If I 
can only get my little soul in! " .1 have always noticed that the people 
who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. 
Here is what we are taught by the church to-day. We are taught by it 
that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven, 
no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy there 
with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life in 
hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we believe in now 
is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the mean things 
you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the 
mean things you have done when yoa are in heaven? Or will you be so 
good then that you won't care how you used to be? Do n't you see what 
an infinitely mean belief that is? I tell you to-day that, no matter in 
what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending 
the summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged you 
will drop a little behind in the tune. And, no matter an what part 
of hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose 
nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will 
cool up a little. According to this Christian doctrine, when you are in 
heaven you won't care how mean you were once. What must be the 
social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never 
would have been there if he had not got scared? What must be the 
social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had not 
pitied him he ought to have been damned? Is it a compliment to an infi- 
nite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned 
the minute He got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has 
not had a chance to make over? Is it possible that somebody else can be 
good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor 
for the human soul ? 

For instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a 



''MISTAKES OF MOSES:' 117 

splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got 
about him splendid children, whom he has loved and cared for with all 
his heart. But he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not 
beheve in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some child- 
ren made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two bears 
and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart, and he 
thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody frag- 
ments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of grief; 
he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not believe 
that God was such an infinite monster. That was all he thought, but he 
went to Hell. Then, there is another man who made a hell on earth for 
his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and his children 
were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the world. 
But just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow got religion, 
and he never did another thing except to take his medicine. He never 
did a solitary human being a favor, and he died ai:d went to heaven. 
Do n't you think he would be astonished to see that other man in hell, 
and say to himself, "Is it possible that such a splendid character should 
bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at last has brought me next to 
Ood?" 

Or, let us put another ease. You were once alone in the desert — no 
provisions, no water, no hope. Just when your life was at its lowest ebb, 
a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out. 
How you would bless that man. Time rolls on. You die and go to 
heaven; and one day you see through the black night of hell, the Iriend 
who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips. 
He cries to you, " Remember what I did in the desert — give me to drink." 
How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be 
unable to relieve him. But this is the Christian heaven. We sit by the 
fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney — everybody 
happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out 
on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing. How 
happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast. And we say " God is 
good, " and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night but for- 
ever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children, every- 
body eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes out its 
shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust. How 
that would increase the appetite! And yet that is the Christian heaven. 
Don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? 
And I would have every one who hears me, swear that he will never con- 
tribute another dollar to build another church, in which is taught such 
infamous lies, I want every one of you to say that you never will, direct- 



118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 

\j or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to preach that falsehood. It 
has done harm enough. It has covered the world with blood. It has 
filled the asylums for the insane. It has cast a shadow in the heart, in 
the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. I say let us rid 
the heavens of this monster, and write upon the dome " Liberty, love 
and law. ' ' 

No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do 
exactly what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact' thought in 
our brains. Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather all 
the gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the 
whole universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this 
instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the 
eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal destruction of this 
universe. I would rather see the shining fabric of our universe crumble 
to unmeaning chaos., and take itself where oblivion broods and memory 
forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, re- 
leased by thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this world that 
man in stress and straint, in astonishment and fear, should suddenly fall 
back to savagery and barbarity. I would rather that this thrilled and 
thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles rub the wheel, the 
parent s.ar, on which the light should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze 
of love on death, than to have this infamous doctrine of eternal punish- 
ment true; rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a 
few and a hell for the many established as the word of God! 

One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy 
here. Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more 
decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man 
try to make his wife happy, his children happy. Let every man try tO' 
make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. I 
cannot help God; I cannot injure God. I can help people; I can injure 
people. Consequently humanity is the only real religion. 

I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from; 

Robert Burns: 

" To make a happy fireside clime 
To weans and wife — 
That's tlie true pathos and sublime 
Of human life." 



dison and his Inventions. 

8 vo. I76 Pages — Illustrated. 

Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 
Popular Edition, Paper Cover, 50 cents. In Cloth, fine, $1.00 

Jj^ntertaining ^necdotes. 

INCLUDING 

Anecdotes of Noted Persons, Amusing Stories, Animal 
Stories, Love Stories, Falling Leaves. 

FROM EVERY AVAILABLE SOURCE. 

''THAT REMINDS ME OF A STOBYJ' 

Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 

8 vo. 256 pages — Handsomely Illustrated. Price, in cloth, fine, $1.00 
Paper cover, 50 cents. Sent by mail post-paid on receipt of price 

JRMODES i& McCLURE, Publishers, 

METHODIST CHURCH BLOCK, CHICAGO. 

Daniel "Webster and the Farmer. 

{From "Entertaining Anecdotes.'") 

Webster was out one day on the Marshes near Marshfield, busily shooting 
birds. It was a hot afternoon in August. The farmers were getting their 
salt hay on the marshes: 

He came, in the course of his rambles, to the Green Harbor River, which 
he wished to cross. He beckoned to one of the men on the opposite bank to 
take him over in his boat, which lay moored in sight. The man at once left 
his work came over, and paddled Mr. Webster across the stream. He de- 
clined the payment offered him, but lingered a moment, with Yankee curios- 
ity, to question the stranger. He surmised who Mr. Webster was, and with 
some hesitation remarked: 

"This is Daniel Webster, I believe," 

"That is my name," replied the sportsman. 

"Well, now," said the farmer, "I am told you can miake from three to 
five dollars a day, pleading cases up in Boston." 

Mr. Webster replied that he was sometimes so fortunate as to receive that 
ainount lor his services. 

"Well, now," retuined the rustic, "it seems to me, 1 declare, if 1 could get 
as much in the city pleadin' law-cases, I would not be a-wadin' over these 
mnrshes this hot weather, shootin' little birds." 



F'lFTIBTil TSOTJSi^ITID- 





CoMPiLED BY REV. J. B. McCLURE, Chicago. 

Comprising all of Mr. Moody's Anecdotes and Illustrations used by him in his 
revival work in Europe and America, including his recent work in Boston. 
Also, Engravings of Messrs. Moody, Sankey, Whittle and Bliss, 
• Moody's Church, Chicago Tabernacle, Farwell Hall, etc. 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND EMINENT DIVINES: 

" The wonderful sale of ' Moody's Anecdotes,' compiled by the Rev. J. B. McClure, 
of Chicago, is the best evidence of the ^reat value of this popular book. Thirty-four 
thousand copies have already been issued, reaching the seventh edition in three 
months. This is, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of Western literature ; at least 
we know of no library book that has m^et with so lar^e a sale in so short a time. It 
bids fair to sell right along, until everybody is supplied with a copy."— Si. Louis Evangelist. 

'"Moody's Anecdotes' is a handsome and handy volume, which many will prize 
as highly characteristic of the great Evangelist. Throughout its two hundred pages the 
truth is keenly applied by the aids of wit and a peculiarly vivid and pictorial pathos." 
—New York Evangelist. 

" The book is handsomely printed and well compiled as to matter.^ It contains the 
pith of Moody's theology^ methods and eloquence, and consists of a selection of the 
great preacher's best stories, drawn from his personal experience. It is a good insight 
into the workings and teachings of the great Evangelist and Christian Preacher."— 
New Orleans Dauy Democrat. 

" The incidents are related in character— it is Mr. Moody that speaks. They are 
short, pointed, peculiarly apt, as are all the illustrations of the Evangelist They form 
the arrows of the great marksman, and have done much of the execution of his ser- 
mons." — Zion's Herald (Boston). 

"A book of anecdotes which have thrilled hundreds of thousands. During 
the last three months thirty-four thousand copies have been issued. Mr. McClure .has 
done a good work in preparing this volume, which we commend to ministers, Sabbath- 
school workers and -p&Tents."— Presbyterian Banner (Pittsburg). 

" It comprises the most striking stories, told in Mr. Moody's well-known concise and 
graphic style, and arranged in alphabetical order, according to the theme illustrated oi 
set forth in the anecdote. The book has been compiled by Rev. J. B. McClure, whose 
scholarship and journalistic experience perfectly fit him to do the work discrim- 
inatingly and well."— iV"^. W. Christian Advocate (Methodist). 

" The book is handsomely printed, the matter is well classified, and will form an 
uncommonly interesting book. A capital book for the Sunday-school."— .Advance (Con- 
gregational). 

" Contains the pith of Moody's theology, methods and eloquence, all in one, and 
will be found agreeable for home reading and useful to the Sunday-school teacher and 
minister."— Jwienor (Presbyterian) 

" Excellent reading, and by their brevity and point will be found especially good 
for that occasional and, perhaps, hasty reading, which is all that many persons can 
hope to find opportunity for." —Standard (Baptist). 

" It is an attractive volume, including all the really interesting matter of Mr. 
Moody's discourses. A very valuable publication ; is selling T&pidlj."— Chicago Evening 
journal 
Price in Cloth, Fine, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 cts. 

RHODES & McCLURE, Publishers, Chicago. 



PRICE 35 CENTS. 



MISTAKES 





— OF- 



INGERSOLL 

AS SHOWN BY 

PROF. SWING, 

W. H. RYDER, D. D., 

BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., 

J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D., 
RABBI WISE, 

AND OTHERS. 

■■:,l'* ■JJW. ^fi,- 

INCLUDING ALSO '" •"' ^ V 

INGERSOLUS LECTURE 



ENTITLED THE 



" Mistakes of Moses." 



EDITED BY 



J. B. McCLURE, 




CHICAGO : 

RHODES & MCCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 

1879. 







■^(1 % 



HIS INVENTIONS 

8 vo, 1 76 pages, — Illustrated, 

EJited by J. B. McCLURE. 
Popular Edition, Paper Cover, 50 cents. In Cloth, Fine, $1.00. 

Entertaining Anecdotes 



Paper Cover, 



8 vo, 256 Pages— Illustrated, 

Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 
50 cents. In Cloth, Fine, 



$1.00 




,W^ 



^v!S.s\\'S5S>\\ "^S? 



Paper Cover, 




W 



Mm 




IW! 



#■ ^JJSSS^ VJS^W*' \<A\\\S.\W^\ ^!S5JS\ W VV\\\\,\\W ^^B5S^ 'WSSvW 



8 vo, 210 Pages,— Revised, 

Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 
50 cents. In Cloth, Fine; 



$1.00 



CHILD STORIES 



Paper Cover, 



8 vo, 160 Pages,— Illustrated, 

Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 
50 cents. In Cloth; Fine, 



$1.00 



Tlie above Boohs are sold by all JBooksellers, News Dealers 

and on all 



t: 



'i^^Sent by Mail, Post-paid, on receipt of price, by the Publishers, 



METHODIST CHURCH BLOCK, CHICAGO, ILL. 



RD-1"? 










>°-^*^ 













*Ao« 










* 




HOfc 








» • o. 







> 



.^ 



HO^ 
















.^ ^"^^^^ 




A^ 










Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process, 
*. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Jan. 2005 



r. ^. PreservationTechnologies 4 

* * A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION VI 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Dr.ve 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
♦' (724)779-2111 











M^: 










> *. .^ .'.^J^-. -^Z ..^^'. u^^^^ : 




